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Tory

If there was one lesson I’d learned since I started flying my surveillance plane for Border Force ten years ago, it was that guilty people often did really stupid things.

Like the geniuses on the ragged vessel four hundred feet below me.

My first sighting of them was during my initial scout of the area earlier that morning.

They’d been at least eighty miles northeast of their current location and they were in one hell of a hurry to get where they were going.

Something about their thirty-foot timber vessel just didn't sit right with me. They had no fishing gear, no dive equipment, and none of the usual tourist paraphernalia. Maybe I was paranoid, given the number of illegal boats and drug traffickers I’d caught in my surveillance over the years, but my gut told me these guys were up to no good.

I noted their coordinates and my stomach twisted.

They were located barely thirty clicks from where Whisper and Ryder had found those human trafficking victims last month.

Eleven people had been crammed into the hold of a shipwrecked boat, half-starved and barely alive.

Modern slavery, right here along the Queensland coast. My own backyard.

Just thinking about it made my hands shake.

Cairns might look like a tourist paradise, but beneath that glittery surface, monsters still prowled our waters .

I pulled my mic from its bracket. "Ladybeetle to base, do you read, over?"

The static crackled, before the radio clicked. "Base to Ladybeetle, this is Whisper, reading you loud and clear, Tory. What's your status?"

Whisper’s familiar voice always made me smile.

“Hey, Whisper. I got a couple of clowns on a vessel that’s giving me the tingles.”

“Ooh, I love it when your spidey senses kick in.” Whisper chuckled. “What’ve you got?”

“I’m sending you a visual of a thirty-foot cruiser. Can you check the registration?”

“Got it. Give me a few secs and I’ll buzz you back.” Whisper clicked off.

To avoid drawing attention from the boat, I continued flying ten miles past their position.

To my right, the midday sun glinted off the shallow water along the mangrove-choked North Queensland coastline.

The landscape was a patchwork of vibrant greens and blues–beautiful but deceptive.

This stretch of coastline gave me the heebie-jeebies.

Too many bad guys lurking in these parts, and too many victims who never saw the light of day once they touched that crocodile-infested soil.

“Base to Ladybeetle, do you read?” Whisper’s voice crackled through the radio again.

“Yes, Whisper. What have you got?”

“We can’t get enough info from that photo. Can you get in for a closer look?”

"Roger that." I banked my Twin Otter around, turning back toward the suspect vessel.

The plane responded smoothly to my touch and the familiar hum of the engines was a comforting melody in my ears. My thoughts cascaded to my parents’ final moments in the sky, and I wondered if they too had felt the same sense of calm up here. Before everything went to shit, that is.

"What’s your location, over?" Whisper’s voice dragged me away from that impossible question.

"I’m about fifteen miles shy of Cooper Creek, over."

She let out a low whistle. “What caught your eye?" Her tone was a blend of curiosity and concern, like she already knew the answer wouldn’t be good.

"No fishing gear," I said, trying to lighten the mood with a weak joke.

“Holy shit. Must be real assholes, then,” she shot back with a dry laugh, but the humor was short-lived. We both knew too much about the horrors that reached this desolate stretch of Australia’s Eastern coastline.

“Approaching the vessel now.” I dropped to two hundred feet and the plane’s shadow skimmed over the water like a phantom.

Two men stepped out onto the front deck of the boat, one raising binoculars to track me. I considered giving them a casual wave, but something about their stiff, guarded posture made me hesitate.

The boat surged forward, and a rooster tail of white water exploded behind them, fanning out across the pristine blue.

“The dickheads are trying to outrun me.”

“Yeah, I’m watching your live feed now,” Whisper agreed. “Wankers.”

I toggled the surveillance camera. The feed beneath the plane zoomed in, and the shabby vessel loomed larger on my screen. A big splash erupted at the boat’s stern.

Oh, hello. What are you up to?

“You getting this, Whisper?” My voice was calm despite the spike of adrenaline kicking in.

“Sure am,” she replied, her tone clipped.

As I passed directly over the boat, two men heaved a dark bag into the water. Then another. And another.

“Yeah, that’s not at all suspicious,” Whisper said, her sarcasm laced with unease.

The bags could be drugs . . . or worse. My stomach tightened as the possibilities churned in my mind. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

"I count three bags so far," I said, banking the Twin Otter into a wide, deliberate arc.

The surveillance camera stayed locked on the vessel, and as the shabby boat grew smaller in the display, its wake carved a sharp, glittering path heading south.

The midday sun turned the rooster tail into a spray of molten silver .

“Okay, Tory. I’ll get Ryder and the team prepped to intercept. I’ll call you back when we’re en route,” Whisper said, her tone brisk and businesslike.

“Copy that.”

“Keep eyes on those clowns, but don’t get too close,” she said. “Remember how those assholes turned Coral Guardian into Swiss cheese.”

“Will do. Over.”

"Be back to you soon, Tory. Over and out."

The radio fell silent.

My stomach tightened at the memory. Two years ago, our Border Force patrol boat Coral Guardian had intercepted what appeared to be an innocent luxury cruising vessel, all gleaming white hull and polished brass.

Instead, our team had faced a storm of armor-piercing rounds that had torn through Coral Guardian's hull like it was paper.

I'd seen firsthand the aftermath: jagged holes punched clean through marine-grade steel, the bridge windows smashed, and our equipment spiderwebbed with dozens of bullet holes.

During the debrief, our Border Force Chief, Ryder, confirmed that the pirates had an RPG launcher. We were lucky Ryder had seen that weapon and was able to get the hell out of their range. If they'd used that . . . well, I might not have Whisper to back me up anymore.

I settled into a holding pattern, far enough away to stay safe but close enough to track them. Their boat carved through the water like a knife, streaking parallel to the coastline.

Why aren't they making a break for shore? The question nagged at me as I watched their wake cut a white line through the blue. Either they were waiting for backup, or they were heading for a rendezvous point. Neither option was ideal for our Border Force patrol.

A quick check of my fuel gauge showed just over half a tank, enough to stay airborne for another two hours at least. To my right, the deep blue Pacific stretched endlessly and was dotted with cargo vessels plowing their ancient trade routes toward Brisbane or Sydney.

These waters had been Queensland's maritime highway since the 1800s and probably its crime route for just as long.

Banking the Twin Otter around again, a distant island was just a green speck in the vast blue. The kind of view my parents would have had that day, before their plane vanished.

My hands tightened on the controls until my knuckles bulged white.

The weather that day had been perfect, just like today; crystal clear skies, light winds, perfect visibility. Their pilot had logged over five thousand hours. Everything had been textbook . . . right until the moment it wasn't.

No Mayday call. No distress signal. Just . . . gone.

The official report labeled it "inconclusive." Such a sterile word for a messy truth. I'd seen the maintenance logs on that Cessna 208 aircraft, and everything was exactly as they should be.

But planes didn't just drop out of the sky on a perfect day with an experienced pilot.

Not unless somebody wanted them to.

As I closed in for another pass at the vessel, four men emerged onto the upper deck. Too distant for facial recognition, but close enough to see their shabby clothing. I nudged the throttle forward, keen to capture their images before they disappeared below deck again.

A sharp crack echoed through the cabin, and a hole was punched through the co-pilot's side window. Cold dread washed over me.

"Fuck! They're shooting at me."

Bullets thudded into the fuselage, and the plane lurched violently.

“Shit! Shit!”

Shots slammed into my left wing, shredding the propeller. Chunks of metal spun away as aviation oil streamed black against the yellow paint.

The controls rattled in my hands and the entire plane vibrated from failing hydraulic pressure. Gunfire hammered the cabin. A line of holes stitched across the instrument panel and punched through the roof.

"Oh fuck!"

Warning lights flashed across the dashboard as I wrestled with the unresponsive controls. The plane bucked and groaned under the relentless assault.

Panic clawed at me as I snatched up the microphone. “Mayday! Mayday! This is Border Force Delta-Seven-Four, taking fire from suspect vessel. Port engine compromised. Initiating emergency landing. Do you read, over?"

As I gripped the microphone, the leading edge on my ravaged left wing tore open, exposing the metal skeleton like a fractured bone.

“Oh God. No! This can’t be happening.”

I tightened my grip on the yoke. "Stay with me, Lady. We haven’t landed yet." I called into the radio again. “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. Can anyone hear me?”

Static hissed through the speaker. I glanced at the radio. But it was shot to shit.

As the plane plunged from the sky, I doubted anyone had heard my Mayday call.