Crammed into a mesh seat, locked into an tightened five point harness, and cradling his heavy backpack on his knees Capt Dogra wondered how the Chinook could have been any worse. The pair of Blackhawks containing their team lifted into the night with a graceful swirl of dust. From there it was all dipping, tilting and swooping over an inky landscape.

Briefed as he had been, the young captain still marveled as mile after mile slipped away underneath with no glimmer of modern civilization. No streetlights. No houses lit up against the darkness. No neon signs or bastions of flourescent glow.

Out of nowhere the 50 cal burst to life from the helicopter’s midsection. A spray of what looked like high speed lava erupted in an arc towards the passing hillside. Nobody else even flinched. The guy across from him, a finance guy if memory served, gave an enthusiastic thumbs up from around his own pack.

Capt Dogra was pretty sure he could heard a muffled, “Yeehaw!” from somewhere to his right.

A rodeo indeed.