Issue 151 April 2026 By the Numbers

00:11

The missile hits my ship head on. Critical failure in an instant. The windshield cracks. Fire blossoms. All around me, the war rages on, starships flitting through their planned formations as bombs rain down from above. I wonder who’ll win this skirmish. I wonder if my death will mean anything to anyone. But most of all, I wonder what went wrong.

00:10

It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s obvious that it’s you. I know it the second I see you, the way you sway on the dance floor like a man under hypnosis, the lights flashing on your broad, drunken smile and your handsome cheekbones. It’s not just because I’ve been cooped up at the Academy, drowning in a sea of straight men. It’s not my frustrated libido drawing me to you. It’s you. I see you and I think, there you are, and your eye catches mine, and it’s like you’re saying, yes, here I am, where have you been this whole time?

00:09

I don’t keep a picture of you on my dashboard. The Academy doesn’t allow sentimental tokens on their ships. They want to remind us that we’re disposable, that we serve the United Front, not ourselves. I disobeyed though. Everyone disobeys. I keep a chunk of malachite on a string (the one you gave me after your first expedition) and I wear it around my neck in every skirmish. When the windshield shatters, the string snaps, and my memento of you hurtles into space. An opaque green star flashing in the void.

00:08

Why did you do it? We already saw each other so rarely, thanks to my training regiment, and then you had to fuck off to explore some caves. To mine for resources, you said. To save the planet. But I didn’t like the distance. The symbolism of it. You plumbing the depths of the Earth, and me soaring far above it. I’m upset with you the entire time you’re gone. Until you come home and place a silky green stone in my palm, and you kiss me and say, I missed you, and I can’t be mad at you, because you’re home now, you’re home with me, and I don’t have to miss you anymore.

00:07

Void rushes in and takes my breath away. It’s like the air is siphoned directly from my lungs. I can almost see it leave me, like a semisolid thing, wisping through my lips before the vacuum claims it. Staccato bursts of gunfire light up my periphery, but I’m in space now, and there’s nothing left for me to hear.

00:06

You take my breath away. That’s what you tell me when we’re halfway into whatever this is. You’re coiled up next to me in bed, both of us flushed and sweaty and warm with afterglow. I want to admonish you for the cliche, but I can barely breathe myself, so who am I fooling, really?

00:05

The ship breaks into pieces around me. We’re not supposed to name our vessels, not supposed to get attached to hunks of metal, but everyone does. I remember approaching her in the hangar, running a hand along her chassis, and thinking, I’ll call you Nova. Prophetic in hindsight, I guess, but you didn’t have to be a genius to predict this outcome. We were always going to end in fire.

00:04

Sparks have been flaring for a while, but when things finally explode, it’s hot and violent. I don’t recognize the stranger who comes back from the mines, caked in dust and minerals and disillusioned about the planet’s chances for survival. You don’t recognize the cynical stranger who comes back from his flights believing the space war will never end. But everything ends, even us. All it takes is one explosive fight, one hateful word spoken, one fist cracking through drywall. I cry in the darkness when you leave, turning your malachite over and over in my hand, wishing it wasn’t so cold to the touch. Wishing I still had your warmth to cling to.

00:03

I’m not the only casualty of this war. Even in the last few seconds of my life, I see countless ships go up in flames, peppering the night sky like bloody fireworks. How many stories are ending on this battlefield? How many lights, like mine, are going out forever? It’s such a waste, such a fucking tremendous waste, and I hate that this is where my mind takes me at the end. I want to go thinking about you. I want my last waking thoughts to be your face, and your smile, and the way you kissed me when we thought this was forever.

00:02

This is the beginning. We’re two strangers meeting in the sweat-soaked walls of an underground club. It only takes a couple of drinks for us to become more than strangers, and it will take years before we’re strangers again. But here, in this moment, we’re burning bright. Stars don’t stop being beautiful just because we know they’ll die one day. Maybe the same is true for us.

00:01

The ship’s frame gives in, a silent ball of flame envelops me, and I know this is the end. That’s okay. If I’m lucky, my body will drift back to Earth, pushed by the force of a thousand starships exploding: one last, cold voyage, before I reenter the atmosphere. I’ll be ice engulfed by fire then, just a bit of space debris burning in the skies, and maybe a young child will watch me from their back porch, and point and smile, and say look, daddy, it’s a shooting star.

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Ⓒ David Farrow