Jason admitted to himself that he was glad his offer to let Barbou walk away in return for Farrah had been refused. He knew that he shouldn’t be. Intellectually, he understood that if the offer was accepted, Farrah would be free and clear. But inside him was a visceral instinct that urged him to kill everyone between him and Farrah until she was free and all the people that hurt her were dead.
That, however, was an implausible power fantasy. He’d indulged in them before, to the cost of himself and others. He thought he could outplay Elspeth Arella and Lucian Lamprey, both seasoned politicians. The reality was that he got himself tortured and Sophie almost condemned to a life of exploitation and depravity. He’d only escaped through luck and protected Sophie by hiding behind Emir. He’d caused the problems and failed to be the solutions.
He was determined to avoid the same mistakes with Farrah. He was going to play it straight and clean, doing whatever it took to get her free. No tricks, no shortcuts. Any sacrifice he had to make personally, he would. His concern was the people around him. The aircrew hadn’t deserved their fate just for flying him.
He had a burning desire to make Barbou suffer everything done to Farrah ten times over but schooled himself to keep focused on the actual objective. Freeing Farrah took precedence over everything. His desires, his pride and his emotional satisfaction were nothing compared to that. He was still willing to let Barbou go if it guaranteed Farrah’s safety and freedom.
First, he needed to reach France. The airstrip did not inspire confidence. The lush, tropical surrounds were gorgeous, but not what he wanted in an international airport.
“Seems a little out of the way,” Jason said.
“Strictly speaking, this airstrip doesn’t exist,” Chathura explained. “It was built as part of a poaching operation, but the poachers are long gone.”
“Are you sure?” Bruce asked.
“Very,” Chathura said. “Before we started working with the government, this place was a way station for us for dodging customs. We still use it when we don’t want the government dogging us with questions. They like to be involved, which means slowing everything down.”
“We appreciate the alacrity,” Asya said. She had regained her senses on the yacht while awaiting the helicopter. All the surviving Network members had been healed up, at least physically. Emotionally, they remained shaken from the ordeal; not everyone almost died as frequently as Jason.
“Your Director of Operations is waiting to talk to you,” Chathura said. “We have a video conference set up in the office. It seems that you weren’t the only ones to experience some excitement.”
Farrah didn’t fight like Sophie or Jason. Their power sets encouraged agility and speed. Farrah’s powers gave her enhanced strength and heavy stone armour, which lent itself to a very different style, more akin to Humphrey’s. That was not to say that she was any less skilled, at least than Jason. What might seem like a crude brawler style at first glance made expert use of weight, leverage, and strength.
Constrained by the collar, Farrah did not have her full, power-driven might, nor the mass of her stone armour. That was not enough to invalidate her fighting style, though. Her peak bronze attributes were superior to those of the EOA thugs. Even if they weren’t, she’d fought monsters and people both that met or even matched her strength and weight.
There were more ways in which Farrah was unlike Jason. She didn’t stop to banter, immediately leaping into action. She hurled herself forward, charging towards the closest thug like a freight train. She dropped her centre of gravity right before the collision, and he tumbled over her like she’d hit him with a car, the impact barely slowing her down. As he fell to the ground behind her, she was already crashing into the next thug. It was a glancing blow as she spun around and behind him, with an elbow to the ear as a going away present.
Her goal was Barbou and the key to her suppression collar. She knew that if she didn’t get it off, there would be no overcoming this many enemies. Breaking through the two thugs opened a path and she made straight for him. He raised a hand and blasted air in her direction.
Recognising the shimmer of a compressed air attack, she juked left. If it had caught her squarely, she would have been sent tumbling back. As it was, the attack still arrested her forward momentum. It was enough time for the rest of the thugs to charge in for the attack while Barbou launched himself into the air and hovered out of her reach.
Farrah was not a large woman, but she was stronger than the burly men coming at her. Where Jason or Sophie might dance around them, Farrah met offence with offence. The first thug was left staggering off, clutching an elbow now bending the wrong way. The next collapsed with a knee in the same condition. The third one hadn’t guarded his face well enough and had a pair of thumbs dug into his eyes.
Despite her good start, Farrah was fighting against the inevitable. The leader of the thugs ordered half his men to dose up. They injected themselves with a boost that ramped them from bronze rank to false silver while the rest kept her occupied.
This was a special purpose squad, made up entirely of elite converted. They suffered fewer side effects from dosing themselves with boosters and their magic tattoos that added a handful of magical abilities to their tactical options. It was nothing compared to Farrah’s array of essence abilities, but those were currently denied her, so even something as simple as the conjured rope that caught one of her arms was a useful tool.
Once Barbou was out of reach, the fight was already over. They had too many people and too much strength, although she made them pay a blood price to finally take her down.
When she was finally unconscious, Barbou descended to the ground.
“Thanks for your help,” the leader of the EOA said sarcastically. His name was Pavel and his French was lightly accented with Russian.
“Your supposedly elite team leaves a lot to be desired,” Barbou said, glancing around. “One small woman with her powers suppressed took out half of it.”
As Barbou said, half of the thugs were sitting or lying on the ground, being tended by the rest. One of the ones that hadn’t boosted himself had been killed outright.
“If only we had an essence user to help us,” Pavel said, giving Barbou a pointed look. “I lost a team member because you lacked the courage to fight your small, power-suppressed woman. The survivors of my team will heal in time, but I think you need to supply some of those famous magic potions the Network has.”
“You think I just carry a bunch of healing potions around?” Barbou said.
“A self-serving prick like you?” Pavel said. “Yeah, I think you do.”
Barbou gave Pavel a flat look, then broke into a chuckle.
“Yes, very well.”