Strike The Sun

Give up, Jazz. Take your hands off the controls. You’re used to fighting. But the kaijin attack every week like it’s a costume serial. They come roaring down from the open blue sky sheathed in the seething glory of the sun. Their battle cries boil the ocean. The sun burns with their hatred. The atmosphere thins, stars swell; exposure overrides consciousness, citizens erupt into static, the roiling shriek of infernal radiation. Cosmic indifference is cosmic malevolence. Perhaps we were made in God’s image after all.

You’re used to fighting, that’s your excuse. Your ridiculous name (like chaos theory, you told me), your expertise, your gender, your relationships, your entire career. The right to wear the uniform is as important to you as your identity. Or is it your identity? Imagine being angry that the wrong type of person is willing to die for you, you’d say, hunched over the bar, basically naked without your professional armor.

So here you are, strapped into your rattling, bristling coffin, fighting me, the only—let’s generously say person—to whom you ever said I love you. I knew how disappointed you'd be in me. With everyone who resonated with the ceaseless rage of the sun. Your expression, watching people across the world erupt into flaming doomsday monsters. Not mad, just disappointed. Letting go like that? Of your humanity? Your sense of self? Even your very form? And I stepped outside anyway, directly into the scorching rays.

I’ve heard people say those combat mechs are overengineered. That there’s no risk, not like the old models, temperamental iron things that severed limbs. I worried about your safety. Remember all the headlines when the mechs were upgraded? Our troops are safer now, opinion articles crowed. I felt some relief. Pretty stupid, right? A machine made like that doesn’t have to feel malevolence to kill you. They say most disasters happen when pilots get complacent, when they stop paying attention. You don’t have that much confidence. You’re always running scared, but too stubborn to give up.

The sun doesn’t need to feel malevolence, either. It just does. I guess we should have known when there was no other life in the galaxy.

Your mech is breaking down, you know. See all these sparks? Funny that you’re fighting us with the same kind of power that spawned us. It’s frustrating, actually. I can’t stand people like you. I can’t believe I went home with you after you said that corny shit at the bar. Your priorities were fucked then and they are fucked now. Just give up; spend your last moments with us in the bonfire, the eternal moment before we burn out.

Admit this is all my fault! You want to save the world? You can’t even save me. I walked right into the light. I couldn’t ever commit to the same type of decisions you excelled at, but I heard the call and opened right up, burst into flame and you weren’t even home. Most people can’t even hear the sun. I know you can. You just reject it, you selfish asshole. Don’t you want to be a part of something bigger? What’s bigger than the fucking sun? Is it any wonder that some jobless shithead gay like me wants to understand what it means to be stardust, just once, before it all goes dark forever? Don’t pretend you didn’t notice the looks your so-called peers gave me!

You won’t save us, not with your cracked shell, your smoldering armor, your dwindling supply of missiles. Actually, it’s funny that you think missiles can save anyone. Is this what they call flying her all the way down? Into the great crash. How fucking admirable, to go down with the ship. Is that the kind of crap you dreamed about in high school? Well, good news! You’re the last one standing, Jazz.

Give up. Take your hands off the controls. Give in. We—the sun and I, united in this moment, candle and flame—swat you and your steel-winged midge out of the sky. The mech’s ashy carapace digs a furrow into the steaming dirt. You are thrown out through the cracked hull; your arm breaks. 

You’re in pain, Jazz. I just want this to be over for us both. You hold your arm. You're bleeding. You gasp. You get up. You stumble. The ocean is boiling. Your helmet’s cracked. The visor only reflects the sun. But you don’t believe in hopelessness, so you get back into the cockpit.

© 2026 Rhiannon Rasmussen

Rhiannon Rasmussen is a print technician as well as a writer and illustrator of dark speculative works. Rhiannon’s fiction has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Diabolical Plots, Vastarian, Magic: the Gathering, several award-winning anthologies, and debut short story collection of lo-fi horror, The Maidens of Midnight, out from Dim Shores. Find more at rhiannonrs.com or @charibdys on Bluesky.