In the front seat with his sights powered up, Sarson clutched the handles on either side of the multipurpose sight system. He didn’t dare touch the joystick or the collective, though their dizzying speed and wild gyrations tempted him to take a hand in the flying of the helicopter. In time he would be free to take charge once they were on the edge of the battlefield and ready to engage. Until then all he could do was hang on, keep an eye open for anything unexpected, and pray that they could do what was expected of them without having to pay too dearly for it.

They were still a good ten kilometers from their first firing position when Sarson caught a glimpse of something ahead. Turning his head toward the sudden apparition was no easy task. He had to counter every twist and turn and dip that Peters imparted to their Apache as he sought to make the best use of the terrain around them. So it took Sarson several seconds to get a clear image of the object that had suddenly popped up in his thermal sight. Even when he did the Guardsman hesitated since he had no idea where the other Guard Apache was.

From their firing positions Kessler suffered none of the handicaps that stayed Peters’s hand. She had complete situation awareness. She knew where the other Apache in her section was. She knew where the opposing Apache would be coming from. Her aircraft was in a stable hover. And her weapons systems were armed, oriented, and functioning. So when the Apache manned by Warrant Officer Keith Peters and 1st Lieutenant Bill Sarson came screaming around the bend in the canyon five hundred yards in front of her, all Kessler had to do was lay the aiming dot on the approaching AH-64, range to it, allow the fire control to adjust the sight for range and ammo selected, and fire.

With a rate of fire of over six hundred rounds a minute it would take mere seconds to burn up the entire load of 380 rounds of HE and armor piercing 30mm ammunition Kessler’s Apache carried for its M-230 chain gun. But she didn’t need anything approaching that number of rounds to bring the Guard helicopter down. Tracking with the speed and agility that she had perfected on live fire ranges and countless hours in a simulator, Kessler kept her sights on target, pumping rounds into the Guard Apache as it went screaming past her. Seated behind Kessler, her pilot watched the engagement through his helmet integrated sight, bringing the aircraft around as the motion of the target required so that his gunner could continue to engage.