"Beyond The Boundary "

Unfinished Echoes

Six Months Later – Operation Samarthya, Drass Sector

The valley air was crisp, biting even in early October. Snow hadn’t touched the peaks yet, but the winds whispered promises.

“Operation Samarthya,” they’d named it — a joint tri-service military exercise that brought together the best of the Indian Army, Navy, and Air Force. It wasn’t just a drill. It was pride, precision, and prestige.

For Flight Lieutenant Aashna Gupta, it was also a reunion.

Aashna was 21 now and Rihi 25

---

She hadn’t seen Rihi in weeks.

Not since the last video call where both had smiled more than they spoke.

The sisters were back in uniform, side by side again — but never quite the same as before. There was laughter. There was teasing. But there were no talks about “them.” Not anymore.

Not a word about Goa, not a name about Abhishek or Shubman.

But some silences carried memories so vivid, they didn’t need to be spoken.

Aashna had changed.

She wasn’t chaos anymore. At least not all the time.

There was discipline in her now. Maturity. A bite of sharp sarcasm when needed, but also a calm that came from long runs under the blazing sun, and lessons learnt in silence.

And then there was Veer Singh Chauhan.

The chaos to her calm.

A Rajput with swagger in his walk, danger in his smile, and a laugh that could break tension in the middle of an air combat drill.

They met during a night nav run. He cracked a bad joke about jets having better love lives than pilots — and Aashna had laughed.

Since then, they’d been inseparable.

“You’re like a well-pressed disaster,” she once told him.

“And you’re like a grounded tornado,” he’d replied, smirking.

---

Mrityunjay, now a seasoned officer stationed near Drass with Lieutenant Rihi Gupta, had also clicked instantly with Veer.

Together, the four of them were trouble — in the most decorated, uniformed, and deadly way possible.

From combat drills to cold dinners, laughter echoed louder than gunfire.

But on the 8th day of the exercise, something shifted.

Aashna had returned early from a debriefing and found herself in Rihi’s tent — looking for her charger, when she spotted it.

An old leather-bound diary. Unlocked. Open just slightly.

A picture tucked inside.

She recognized it before she touched it.

Goa.

Beach breeze. Sunburns. Slurred karaoke.

And… him.

There, tucked between pages — a candid shot of Shubman and Rihi. Smiling. Holding kulfis. A moment frozen before everything broke.

Aashna stared at it.

Her throat tightened.

Another photo lay beneath — a grainy print of her and Abhishek from that same trip. He had his arm around her. Her head was tilted back laughing.