The drifter raised its massive fist and slammed it down onto me, kicking up a cloud of sand. My body was too fast for it. As soon as its fist hit the ground, I was on its wrist and took off running up the length of its arm, my sword swiping superficial cuts into it as I went. Deejay watched enviously.

“Damn. I mean, I knew she had some moves, but-”

“I don't care if she wants to fight that thing.” Ty picked up the half-assembled guns Deejay dropped. “She's not getting herself killed on my watch. Your plan before, with rigging up the batteries. Think it'll still work?”

“Hard to say. Yes, the remaining charge should still do the job. But-”

He abruptly yanked the ship's controls, swerving the ship backward to dodge the beast's other massive claw as it tried to swat the ship out of the air.

“-But I don't think the gun can paint a target that large.”

Marc pulled himself upright in the seat, having been thrown around like rag doll by the sudden motion.

“Seriously?” he asked. “How is a bigger target harder to hit?”

“It's a gun that shoots lightning, dude. Line of sight doesn't matter. The gun has to paint the target to ionize it, so the discharge will jump to it like a lightning rod. We don't have enough juice to ionize something that big.”

There's a helpful diagram on the battery cover that Deejay drew up to explain this to anybody else who used one of these arc pistols. The diagram was just three drawings arranged into a three-panel comic. Panel one, invisible laser thingy hits target. Panel two, target is hot, lock-on confirmed. Panel three, “ska-doosh”. If I had been in the talking mood, I might have advised him against ever unironically writing the word “ska-doosh” on anything.

“If you can't target the monster itself, what about that sword?” Ty gestured toward me.

I was still scaling the creature, making it from its upper arm to its shoulder. The sword slashed at the other hand that was trying to grab me. Deejay pointed the partially disassembled gun toward the action, looking at the tiny LED screen dangling from some wires. He smiled.

“I don't know what the hell that blade is made of, but it's letting me lock on. This could work.”

Ty nodded and grabbed the ship controls, steering closer.

“Alright. Finish linking up the batteries.”

I continued along the drifter's shoulder, going behind what would be its neck. It tried to grab me again. Not that he needed to, but Ty pulled out his revolver and fired several shots at its forearm, which was enough to distract it for a moment. He took the controls again and dove the ship lower to avoid the creature's retaliating swipe.

“Jay! Just stab the thing in the head, leave the blade in and jump clear. We'll take it from there.”

“I'm almost ready!” Deejay added. “Couple more seconds.”

I glanced back at them, trying to focus on Ty's words. I trusted they knew what they were doing. Hopefully my body would too. The beast would fall one way or another; that seemed to be good enough. My body clambered up onto the creature's head. An enormous hand reached for me again but the sword slashed it clear in half. That and another barrage of bullets from Ty left the hand crumbling into a useless stump.

The beast threw its head around wildly in an attempt to shake me off, but my grip held firm. As its thrashing ceased, I held out the sword and slid down toward the front of its head, between its two gaping eyes. With determination, I drove the blade into its forehead, and the creature let out a terrible moan. It threw its head back suddenly. I let go and allowed myself to fall away into the open air.

“Now! Do it!” Ty shouted.

Deejay pointed the rigged arc gun and pulled the trigger. The device discharged with a deafening thunderclap. A huge crackling arc of electricity jumped from the gun to the blade still stuck in the creature's head, and its whole body convulsed. As it staggered backward, Ty swooped the ship down under me, ready to make a catch. Deejay dropped his weapon and jumped into the back seat, with a mischievous glimmer in his eye.

“Hold it steady! I've got her! I've got her!”

I landed hard in the back seat. The whole ship rocked and tumbled wildly as the on-board computer tried to stabilize us. Just as he planned, Deejay wound up lying flat on his back with his hand planted firmly on chest. Unlike how he planned, that chest belonged to Marc.

“Uh... Personal space?”

Marc shuffled awkwardly off of Deejay. I sat beside the two of them, shaking my head in subdued amusement. Deejay blinked.

“Um, wow. Okay, that really didn't work out like I'd thought it would.”

He should have counted himself lucky. At least this way he got to keep that hand.

Ty steered the ship to a safe distance as the giant drifter fell to its knees, slowly toppled over and collapsed flat on the ground. Its form started crumbling away, and a few visible wisps of ghostly drifters floated into the air as they left the dissolving body.

“Damn,” Ty said, letting out a relieved sigh. “I think we actually did it.”

“No kidding...” Deejay added, watching the drifters. “Well, I hadn't planned on this today, but when opportunity knocks...”

Deejay opened a storage compartment in the cockpit and retrieved a round white device about the size of a softball. He pressed a switch and lowered it slowly down off the side of the ship by a long cord. Ty hovered the ship closer to the dissolving body of the giant. The electronic eye in the middle of the device cast a ray of light downward like a spotlight. Some of the floating spectral drifters finally earned their name as they drifted lazily toward the light.

“What's he doing?” Marc asked.

“You can't really kill drifters,” Ty explained. “They just keep coming back. But if we can capture them, that's at least a few that won't be threatening us again.”

As the drifters entered the light, an invisible force seemed to draw them upward into the eye, which absorbed their wispy forms like smoke being sucked into a fan.

“Serves you right, you little troublemakers,” Deejay said smugly.

–

The ride back was quiet. If there were any drifters left in the area to threaten us, they either weren't taking the chance or couldn't keep up with the ship. No sand worm attacks either, not that I'd ever seen one or remotely expected to. My body was still, and my mind unusually quiet. It was kind of a nice change of pace, and well worth almost getting devoured for. The fact that I'd helped save a man's life was pretty amazing too.

Marc rode in the front passenger seat while Deejay drove. Ty sat in back with me, I assume because he felt the need to keep an eye on me. He had nothing to worry about at that point, but after what he'd seen, I couldn't really blame him for being a little paranoid. Whatever that sword was, it disappeared when the drifter went down. He wanted to ask me about it; I wouldn't have known what to tell him. Marc was the one who finally broke the silence.

“So... I'm guessing those things were the drifters you talked about in the video. But what was that place?”

“That...” Deejay answered, pointing a thumb back the way we came from, “was going to be the site where Esperanza was built, before we knew what was living out there. Who would've guessed the creepy black tower of doom was the safer bet, huh?”

“You want to tell us what you were doing all the way out there?” Ty asked.

Marc gingerly touched his bandaged ankle.

“I'm sorry, I know it's against the rules. I can see why. I just...” He anxiously wiped his brow. “This place... The whole thing's just so messed up. I can't get used to it. I never wanted to come here in the first place. I still miss my home, my old life, you know? If there was any way I could go back...”

Deejay interrupted. “You and your sister were from Earth 9-A, weren't you?”

Marc nodded solemnly.

“Dude... I'm sorry. But you know you can't go back. None of you can.”

“I know, it's just...” He shook his head. “I just had to get out of town, and I didn't know where to go.”

Ty had a pensive look about him, but didn't say anything.

“Well look,” Deejay said. “I can't really say I understand what you're going through, but we all want you to be happy here, so if there's anything we can do to make it feel more like home, anything at all, don't hesitate to ask, okay?”

Marc nodded, and cracked a smile. “Thank you guys so much. I guess I kind of owe you my life twice now.”

“Hey, don't worry about it, we're happy to help.”

“I'll be even happier when you promise me you won't wander off like that again,” Ty added.

“I'm sorry. I promise, I won't make that mistake again.” Marc turned around and looked at me. “And thank you, for real. That was some amazing stuff back there. You were like some kind of ninja assassin or something.”

I stared at him blankly. Not that my mask or goggles were going to convey much of a facial expression anyway.

“...Um, of course I mean that in a good way. Sorry, we haven't met before, have we? I'm Marc.”

“Yeah, Jay's not much of a talker,” Ty replied.

Marc stared at me a beat, then turned away awkwardly. I'm not sure what he expected.

“I've noticed. So, what's her story?”

“We're still trying to figure that one out, actually,” Deejay said. “Don't really know much about her or where she came from.”

“Does she have amnesia or something?”

Ty cringed. “Oh god, wouldn't that be a horrible cliché?”

Deejay nodded sympathetically. “I'm sure there are a lot of secrets behind those intense heterochromatic eyes of hers, but whatever they are, she's not telling us. Can't really blame her, I guess. She's definitely been through some stuff. You know when we found her she was all-”

Ty shot him a withering look that Deejay pretty much saw before he even turned around. He could probably feel it burning a hole in the back of his head. Deejay cleared his throat.

“Ahem. On second thought, maybe that's enough exposition for today.”