Kate Gallagher and the Zimmermanite Quest

One by one, the Galaptagos took flight. Their huge transparent wings beat the air so rapidly that they were just a silver blur. Up close, the buzzing noise drowned out everything else, so the blast caught Kate entirely by surprise. The animal had risen no more than a few feet when something lit the air behind it. It swerved to the right and surged upwards, but the residual blast caught Kate and knocked her sideways off the animal’s back. She tumbled through the air and landed heavily in the mud. For a moment, she lay winded, then rolled to her hands and knees and retrieved her staff, which had landed a few feet from her. She looked back up the hillside. The soldiers had dismounted and were firing pulses of energy at the escaping students. Kate watched in horror as one devastating blast caught the animal ridden by Olivia and Ethan. It was sixty feet above the ground, and it dropped like a stone and landed at the edge of the trees. Olivia’s scream was cut short by a sickening thud. Kate stood and returned fire, scattering the soldiers, but they turned their attention to her. She ducked and weaved as explosions rocked the ground where she’d been standing. She rolled to her left and scrambled on her hands and knees, keeping low, towards the place where Olivia and Ethan had fallen. Above her, Sigrid, Kareem, and Jackson and Mia circled and darted across the sky as they brought the animals under control. They rolled and dove, swooping like hawks above the heads of the soldiers and provided some covering fire. Kate found Olivia and Ethan. Olivia had landed on top of him and had briefly lost consciousness. She was moaning softly as Kate rolled her off Ethan’s still form. “Olivia! Are you okay? Speak to me!” She slapped Olivia’s cheeks, which seemed to help bring her around. “Help me with Ethan. We’re going to have to try and make a run—” Her words dried away in her mouth. Ethan was unconscious, pinned beneath the dead Galaptago by one leg. There was a cascade of sparks from the stump where his left arm used to be. The blast that had caught the Galaptago through the chest had passed on through and blown it away. There was no time to lose! Kate tore the blindfold from the head of the dead animal, and wrapped it tightly around the stump that ended just above Ethan’s elbow. She was able to staunch the flow of energy to the point where it was a slow trickle of sparks leaking around the edge of the bandage. “He’s going to need a doctor,” Kate said. She risked raising her head to check on the soldiers. “Or a medic,” she added. “Ka—aa—ate!” Kareem’s voice cut through the air above them. Olivia gripped Kate’s head in her hands as she spoke desperately. “You can’t stay!” she pleaded. “Streikker will have orders not to bring you back, and you know it. Without you, Ethan and I stand a chance. If he killed you, he’d have to kill us as well.” “Get ready! I’m coming!” Kareem called again. Kate glanced skyward. She watched Kareem circling higher in the updraught above the edge of the ridge behind the soldiers, and saw him peel away and plummet towards the ground in a gut-wrenching dive. Sigrid and Mia provided the cover, which kept the soldiers’ heads low. “Go!” Olivia urged. “I’ll make sure he gets looked after! Go! I’ll cover you!” Kate bit her lip, then reached across and gripped Olivia in a tight embrace. “Take care!” she whispered. She slid Rhyanon into the sheath across her back. And then she was gone. The next moment, she was upright and was sprinting alongside the treeline. She glimpsed the blond captain as he stood and pointed his staff towards her, and she jinked away as first one, and then another explosion thudded into the ground beside her. She kept running. She hurdled tussock and was pelted by clods of dirt and stung by the stone shrapnel carried by the blasts. From the corner of her eye, she saw a flash, a blur of movement as Kareem raced down the slope barely feet above the ground. He blew past the captain and knocked him sideways off his feet just as another explosion flung Kate into the air. She twisted in a somersault as flying debris tore through her clothing. She felt a hammer blow against her shoulder just before she was catapulted into a peat bog. The water closed over her head, and she struggled to her hands and knees, drenched and exhausted.