Somewhere near the border of Country A ...
Deep into the night, a battalion of soldiers were hiding in a forest, monitoring the activities of the terrorists in front of them. Around twenty five of them, decked fully in their gears, guns in their hands and night vision goggles covering their eyes.
There was some movement in the shelter in front of them. Suddenly, torch was lit all around the base and people were seen moving around.
"Anuj..", whispered Karan. Anuj silently went and passed on the binoculars to him.
"According to my estimation, there are fifty of them with large amount of ammunition. What should we do Aryan ??", asked Karan after analysing the shelter, leaning against one side of the tree while Aryan was taking aim towards the shelter, leaning against the other side.
Rest of the battalion was waiting for orders in silence listening to the howling of the wind .
"Major, Shall we call for Squad - B ?", asked Anuj awaiting orders from Karan and Aryan - Major Karan and Major Aryan, the two people leading this mission, the mission to annihilate the group of terrorists coming together from different parts of the country there.
"Negative, by the time they will reach here, we would have lost the element of surprise. We can't afford to lose this chance.", answered Aryan.
After a moment of silence,
"We will attack now.", both Karan and Aryan said in unison.
"Karan, make an outer parameter of ten commandos, mainly of snipers. For right and left flank, I along with Anuj and rest of the commandos will move forward for direct assault. Whoever comes out of the inner circle you have to take care of them. None of the terrorists should stay alive. Copy.", Aryan gave his orders.
"Copy. All the Best.", replied Karan.
Getting into their positions, all twenty five soldiers moved forward silently, moving with the grace of a predator, going for the kill under the cover of the forest.
"Anuj..", Aryan gave him a hand signal to proceed.
Anuj placed the Launcher on his shoulder. Aiming for the shelter, he launched the missile.
In the desolate silence of the night, this marked as the beginning of the fight. The missile set an entire section of the shelter on fire, destroying it completely.
The commandos surrounded the shelter and started firing, Aryan leading them, killing a few of the terorists, catching them off gaurd. The deafening sound alerted the rest of the terrorists and it turned into a fierce cross fire. The snipers at the same time started taking aim at the terrorists moving out of the inner circle.
Sparks and flames rose into the sky, one of the commandos threw grenade at the bunker present killing another few of them.
Aryan was moving stealthily searching for their group's leader. He found him trying to run away from the shelter. He aimed his rifle at his heart and was about to take the shot but a bullet went past his ear, a slight movement and he would have been the one shot. He turned around to see a terrorist lying dead. He looked into the forest and tilted his head thanking Karan, after which he started following the leader. After moving farther into the forest, he got hold of the leader - Ekhlakh Khan.
"Hello, Major Aryan. Never thought we would meet again that too under such circumstances. How have you been Major ?", spoke Ekhlakh as if he was meeting a long lost friend.
Aryan continued aiming his rifle at him.
"Well, since you don't want to chitchat. Let's talk business. I heard that the people from Army are honest and upright. Don't you think that a fight should happen between equals. How is it fair that you have a rifle and I am weaponless."
Aryan continued to be silent, looking lethal as if waiting for Ekhlakh to make one move, wrong or otherwise.
"Oh come on. Give me a fair fight.", Ekhlakh whined. If it was anyone else other than Aryan, they would have got goosebumps due to his cringe worthy and psychotic way of speaking, but Aryan stood still with his face stiff as a stone.
Aryan threw his rifle to the side, removed his jacket and took his stance for hand to hand combat, signalling Ekhlakh to make his move. Ekhlakh sneered on him for his foolishness.
Both of them started throwing kicks and punches on each other, trading blow after blow, both matching each other equally. Both seperated from each other, encircling each other, playing the game of intimidation, trying to psychologically pressurise their opponent to give up.
Ekhlakh lost his concentration for a moment taking advantage of which Aryan punched him on his face, twisted his arm back making him kneel and kicked him on his ribs, making him spit blood. Ekhlakh Khan laid on the ground taking slow, shallow breathes.
Aryan stood tall and strong, wiping the blood on his forehead bent to pick up his rifle and jacket. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Ekhlakh taking out a knife from his breast pocket. Before, he could even move, Aryan within fraction of seconds shot his wrist holding the knife and right leg, just above the knee.
"Just because I agreed for a fair fight does not mean I am not aware how your mind works Ekhlakh. You are alive not because you are capable rather because I want you to live."
Aryan took out rope and tied his hands and legs. Meanwhile, Karan reached him, after following his trail.
"Rest all the members are dead, no casualties on our side though a few are injured, in need of medical attention...ahmm.....including you.", said Karan taking over tying Ekhlakh while checking on Aryan at the same time.
"I am fine, Karan don't worry."
"We will talk about this later.", he said in a somber tone.
Both of them dragged Ekhlakh back to the point where the chopper from the army will come to pick them up.
"I am proud of all of you for your efforts and hardwork in this mission.", said Aryan, his voice low, resonating in the forest, compelling everyone to listen to his charisamtic voice, making all the soldiers feel proud of themselves. He continued,"I promised Colonel Bakshi, the number of soldiers going on foot will be same as those of coming back on foot and I am glad we kept that promise."
With the first ray of the sun, they heard the sound of chopper. All of them got into the chopper with their target Ekhlakh Khan and left for their base where Colonel Bakshi was waiting for his best soldiers.