The Crane and the Needle
Some partnerships are worth any price...
Aria's hands moved with machine precision even as autocannon rounds punched through the air around her. Fold. Crease. Turn. The paper crane took shape from a torn piece of medical chart, its white wings stark against the blood on her fingers.
Crane number 2,847. Each one a ghost. Each one a failure.
"Angel, talk to me!" Zara's voice cut through the comm static, Iron Maiden laying down suppressive fire three stories below.
"Your left wing assembly is showing heat warnings!"
The Nexus security forces had turned six city blocks into a war zone. Dr. Elena Vasquez pressed against Aria's back, clutching research data that someone was willing to kill thousands to suppress. And somewhere in the chaos, Aria's past had finally caught up with her.
She let the crane fall, watching it tumble through smoke and gunfire toward the streets where civilians ran screaming.
For the first time in three years, she'd let one go.
THREE HOURS EARLIER
The secure comm crackled to life in their underground hangar, interrupting the comfortable rhythm of partnership. Aria folded maintenance reports while Zara's knitting needles clicked in perfect time with her diagnostic work on the wing assembly.
"Delta-9, this is Nexus Control. Priority extraction, Sector 7 medical facility. Dr. Elena Vasquez, atmospheric research specialist. Timeline: eighteen hundred hours."
Aria caught the origami crane before it could fall — a habit born from too many nights when paper birds were the only things that kept her hands from shaking. Three years of working with Zara had taught her to read the subtle signs: the way her partner's needles hesitated meant trouble.
"Sector 7," Zara said quietly.
"That's Basilisk territory."
The words hit Aria like ice water. The Basilisk Collective — underground mech fighters who'd nearly destroyed Zara's life before she went clean. Before she'd found something worth staying clean for.
"There are other ways—"
"No." Zara's needles stilled completely, and Aria knew they were in serious trouble.
"Sector 7 is locked down tighter than Fort Knox. Corporate security, automated defense grids, military-grade no-fly zones. The only way in is through the old maintenance tunnels, and the Basilisks own every inch of underground access."
Aria reached for fresh paper, her fingers already beginning the familiar motions. The mission brief painted a grim picture: Dr. Vasquez had been developing atmospheric processors — advanced climate recovery systems — when she'd stumbled onto something that made her a target.
"Simple extraction," Aria said, though she was already on her third crane.
"Get in, get the doctor, get out."
Zara's laugh held no humour.
"Angel, nothing involving the Basilisks is simple. And nothing involving Rex Morrison is ever safe."
THE BETRAYAL
The first bullets came from behind.
Aria rolled through the air, wing-mounted thrusters screaming as their Nexus escort team opened fire. Below, Iron Maiden absorbed the initial volley, Zara's reflexes saving them both from what should have been a killing ambush.
"They painted us as hostiles!" Zara's voice carried disbelief and fury in equal measure.
"Nexus just marked Delta-9 as terrorists!"
The horrible truth solidified as Aria dove through the urban landscape, using building edges and advertising holograms for cover. This had never been an extraction mission. Dr. Vasquez wasn't an asset — she was a liability. And Delta-9 was the perfect scapegoat.
Corporate security drones swarmed the airspace like mechanical wasps. Ground forces converged from three directions. Somewhere in the medical facility, an innocent woman waited to die while powerful people covered their tracks with blood.
"Spark, we need those tunnels. Now."
The comm went silent for long enough that Aria thought she'd lost her. When Zara spoke again, her voice carried the weight of a decision that would cost them both.
"I know someone. But Angel..." Static filled the channel as Iron Maiden took a direct hit.
"What I'm about to do — I can't come back from it. Do you trust me?"
Aria looked down at the paper crane in her palm, remembering Singapore. Remembering the choice between her squadron and civilians. Remembering the sound children made when they stopped screaming.
"With my life."
THE UNDERGROUND
The Basilisk Collective operated from converted subway stations deep beneath the city's belly, where neon bled colour into perpetual twilight and the air thrummed with mechanical heartbeats. Aria kept her wings folded tight as they descended, every instinct screaming danger.
Rex "Viper" Morrison hadn't aged well. The facial scars were deeper now, and his custom fighting mech looked like it had crawled out of a fever dream — all blade-edges and hydraulic muscle designed for one purpose only: inflicting maximum damage in the minimum time.
"Well, well. Little Zara Cross, back from playing soldier."
Zara's response was to reach into her gear bag and pull out a small trophy — polished metal shaped like interlocking gears. Her speed-knitting championship from the underground circuits, won three years ago in this very station.
"I need tunnel access to the medical district, Rex. One-time passage for my team."
Rex's gaze slid to Aria, cataloging threats with predator precision.
"Your corporate handler? The pretty little angel who's probably broadcasting our location to half the city?"
Without breaking eye contact with Rex, Zara raised the trophy and slammed it against the concrete. Metal rang like a bell as it shattered, pieces scattering across oil-stained ground.
"I'm not asking as Zara Cross the champion. I'm asking as Zara Cross the woman who's finally found something worth more than winning."
Aria felt something shift in her chest. In three years of partnership, she'd never seen Zara destroy anything she'd built. The broken trophy represented more than victory — it was the last piece of who she'd been before Delta-9.
Rex smiled, and Aria saw the trap closing.
"One fight. Winner takes all. You lose, I keep your angel and that beautiful mech outside. You win..." He shrugged.
"We negotiate."
"Absolutely not." Aria stepped forward, but Zara raised a hand.
"There is no other way." Zara's fingers found her knitting needles, working them through empty air in nervous patterns.
"This is who I was before you knew me, Angel. Trust me now."
Above them, explosions echoed through the tunnel system. The battle was spreading. Soon, the entire district would be consumed.
Aria closed her eyes and folded a crane from memory alone. When she opened them, Zara was already stripped near naked and climbing into the fighting pit.
THE FIGHT
Rex's mech was built for murder — all predator grace and razor edges. Iron Maiden looked clunky by comparison, designed for heavy lifting, long-range firepower and defensive operations. It should have been slaughter.
But Aria had never seen Zara fight angry before.
Iron Maiden moved like a dancer, using every piece of arena debris as both weapon and shield. Zara's knitting-trained hands flew across the control interface, finding patterns in chaos that Rex couldn't match. When his mech lunged, she was already gone. When he tried to use superior speed, she turned momentum against him.
The arena floor was concrete and steel, but Zara made it into art.
The killing blow came when she did something impossible — she made Iron Maiden knit. The mech's manipulator arms wove industrial cable through the arena's superstructure in seconds, creating a web that Rex drove into at full speed.
His mech hit the net and stopped like it had struck a wall. The impact sent him sprawling, unconscious before he hit the ground.
"Terms accepted," Rex said when they'd hauled his naked and bruised body from the wreckage, nursing a bloody nose and what looked like genuine respect.
"Tunnels are yours, Cross. But after this..." He gestured at the destroyed trophy.
"Your debt is paid. Don't come back."
Zara nodded, already turning away.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
THE EXTRACTION
Dr. Elena Vasquez was exactly what Aria had feared — a middle-aged woman with kind eyes who clutched her research data like a lifeline. She looked up as Aria crashed through the medical facility's windows, wings spread like a mechanical angel.
"They said you were coming to kill me," she whispered.
"Not today, Doctor." Aria's targeting systems painted hostile signatures throughout the building.
"Spark, I need an exit route. We've got company."
"Taking heavy fire on the ground floor," Zara reported.
"This isn't just corporate security anymore, Angel. Someone called in military contractors."
Through reinforced windows, Aria could see the scope of the betrayal. Nexus had mobilised a private army, turning at least six city blocks into a battlefield.
Emergency services couldn't penetrate the combat perimeter. Civilians were trapped in the crossfire.
"The atmospheric processors," Dr. Vasquez said quietly against Aria's shoulder.
"They're not for climate recovery. They're weapons — localised atmosphere manipulation systems. They can suffocate entire city blocks without leaving a trace."
Aria felt something crack inside her chest. Singapore all over again. Civilians dying while powerful people played games with lives.
She began folding another paper crane one-handed whilst carrying the doctor.
"Spark, change of plans. We're not just extracting Dr. Vasquez. We're ending this."
SINGAPORE
"Angel Lead, you have civilians in the target building. Abort your attack run."
"Negative, Control. Priority targets are confirmed. Acceptable losses."
Aria looked down at the school below, saw children pressed against windows, and made a choice that would haunt her forever.
"Angel Lead to squadron. I'm going in alone. Everyone else, stand down."
She saved the children. Lost her squadron. Lived with the weight of both.
THE STORM BREAKS
The battle for Sector 7 would be sanitised in official reports, but those who lived through it would never forget the sight of an angel carving through enemy lines while paper cranes fell like snow.
Aria pushed her wing system beyond safe operational limits, becoming a blur of steel and fury that cut through Nexus forces like judgment itself. Below, Iron Maiden provided mobile cover for fleeing civilians, its shields absorbing fire meant for families.
Dr. Vasquez broadcast her data from Aria's mobile platform, streaming evidence across every available network. The truth spread faster than weapons fire could contain it.
But the cost was brutal. Aria's wing system bled heat and hydraulic fluid. Zara's mech lost armour plating with each hit. They were dying by degrees.
"Angel," Zara's voice was soft across the comm.
"Seventeen hostiles converging on your position. Iron Maiden is at critical damage levels."
Aria looked down at the paper crane in her palm — number 2,853. For three years, she'd never let one go. Each represented a failure, a ghost, a choice that haunted her.
"Spark. Trust me."
She released the crane and dove toward the Nexus command center.
THE EYE OF THE STORM
Director Harrison Cyrus waited in his corporate tower like a spider in a web of glass and steel. When Aria crashed through the reinforced windows at terminal velocity, he didn't even flinch.
"Major Aria Valdez. Singapore Siege survivor. Section Eight discharge for disobeying direct orders." His smile was oil and poison.
"You saved three hundred children and lost forty-seven marines. Tell me, was it worth it?"
Aria set Dr. Vasquez down carefully, her hands already reaching for paper.
"Every life is worth it."
"Even your partner's?" Cyrus nodded toward his wall display, where security feeds showed Iron Maiden surrounded, outgunned, taking fire from all sides.
"Even your own?"
Aria began folding while keeping her eyes on Cyrus.
"Especially ours."
"You can't save everyone, Major. You learned that in Singapore. You'll learn it again today." He gestured at the battle raging outside.
"Surrender now, and I'll ensure Ms. Cross receives medical attention. Continue this futile resistance, and watch another partner die for your principles."
The paper crane took shape in her hands — perfect, pristine, unmarked by the blood and smoke around them. For a moment, she saw every crane she'd ever folded, every ghost she'd carried, every choice that had led to this moment.
Then she smiled.
"The difference between Singapore and today, Director? Today, I'm not alone."
She let the crane fly.
What followed would be classified at the highest levels. Security footage would mysteriously malfunction. The only witness would be Dr. Vasquez, who would later swear she saw paper wings become real, saw a woman fold reality itself into new shapes.
When emergency services reached the command center, they found Director Cyrus and his staff unconscious but unharmed. The atmospheric weapons data had been broadcast globally. Nexus Corporation stock crashed overnight.
And in the wreckage of Sector 7, two women sat in a medical tent while medics worked to save what remained of their equipment — and their future.
THE PRICE
"How bad?" Aria asked, though she could see the answer in the medic's expression.
"The wing system is completely destroyed," the doctor said gently.
"The neural interfaces were damaged beyond repair. I'm sorry, but you'll never fly again."
Aria nodded, folding paper cranes from bandage wrappers with steady hands. Three years of mechanical flight, ended in a single day. The price of choosing others over herself.
"And Spark?"
"Ms. Cross will make a full recovery, but..." The medic hesitated.
"The damage to her hands from the mech interface overload — she'll retain full function, but the fine motor control will never be quite the same."
Zara looked up from the knitting needles in her lap, trying and failing to manage the simple stitches that had once been second nature.
"Guess I'm retired from speed competitions."
They sat in silence for a moment, two women who had given up the things that defined them to save strangers.
Around them, the city began to heal.
"So what now?" Zara asked.
Aria looked at her latest crane — imperfect, made from medical supplies, beautiful in its simplicity. She let it go. It drifted away on the evening breeze, carrying her ghosts with it.
"Now we find a new line of work. Something that doesn't require corporate approval."
Zara grinned despite her bandages.
"I hear humanitarian work is deeply rewarding."
SIX MONTHS LATER
The converted warehouse that housed Delta-9 Humanitarian Rescue bore little resemblance to a military operation. Paper cranes nested in the rafters alongside knitted scarves in every colour imaginable. Equipment was maintained to impossible standards, but the weapons had been replaced with medical supplies and rescue gear.
They specialised in impossible extractions now — disaster zones, war-torn regions, places where government agencies couldn't or wouldn't go. Their success rate remained perfect.
Rex Morrison consulted on difficult cases, though he never stayed long. Old debts had been paid, but new friendships were fragile things that required careful tending.
Dr. Elena Vasquez headed the International Atmospheric Recovery Project, using her research to actually heal the planet. She kept a paper crane on her desk — imperfect, made from a battlefield bandage, but entirely priceless.
And in the quiet hours between missions, two women sat together in comfortable silence. One folded paper birds with hands that would never again grip flight controls. The other slowly knitted scarves with fingers that would never again achieve championship speed.
They had learned that trust was the only currency that mattered, and that some storms were worth flying through together.
Late at night, when the city slept and the warehouse was quiet, they received encrypted messages from other corporate whistleblowers, other victims of systems too big to fight alone. Each message was signed with the same symbol: a paper crane.
The network was growing. The revolution would be folded from kindness, one crane at a time.
A mysterious benefactor funded their operations — someone who signed their payments with a simple "Z" and asked no questions. They suspected, but never investigated. Some gifts were too precious to examine too closely.
And when the wind was right, paper cranes still drifted through the air like snow, carrying wishes toward a sky that had room for all of them.
In the end, they had learned that wings weren't made of metal and circuits, but of trust and sacrifice and the simple act of choosing others over yourself.
The paper cranes, when they fell, landed softly. And when they were needed, they became real…
These latest two tales were actually about five separate tales that had been started but not finished... They have a similar message if not aesthetic. They will be the last ones for a little while, I'm having a rest from writing for a week... Need to recharge, and when I do the next tales will be of Jupiter and our protagonists in Lerryn.