“Exactly my point.”
200
Slade hung up and sighed as he returned to the table. Trisha’s smile died at the irritated expression he wore.
“What is it?”
Slade sat. “There are just more problems to deal with. I can’t wait until we can close Reservation to workmen and actually secure it.”
“More troubles?” Brass stopped eating. “Something else has happened?”
“You could say that.” Slade stood again and left the dining room to enter the kitchen. Seconds later he returned with a soda. He popped the top and took a sip as he retook his seat. “The three attackers who survived yesterday are claiming to be part of a new branch of a human hate group who’ve sworn to make us sell the land and leave the area. They are boasting that yesterday just marked the beginning of the trouble we will endure if we stay. We still have a lot of construction to finish and we need the workers to complete it. Any of them could be members of this new group.”
“Was their intent yesterday to kill a few of us or did they have bigger plans than attacking the cabin?” Brass growled the words.
“Their objective, according to one of them, was to destroy any remote structures and kill any of our kind they came across. They knew they’d be attacked if they targeted the bigger structures such as the hotel with all of our security in place. We know they succeeded with the cabin. One of the human males knew the old woman who used to live in Valiant’s house. I guess since Valiant never removed all the woman’s belongs, when they reached the second floor, he decided the woman must still live there and they left. Otherwise they were going to torch the place. They were stopped before they could find more homes to attack.”
“That Victorian is such a beautiful house.” Trisha shook her head. “What jerks.”
“I’m more pissed about their attack on you.” Slade looked grim. “They could have killed you. Every hour I had some of our men do a head check on the humans but now we have to do it every half hour. They had over twenty minutes to cause trouble before we noticed they were gone. I’m also going to have to put tracking systems on all vehicles that enter Reservation and have them monitored. They smuggled guns past our security, which alarms me too. We see a lot of vehicles coming in with building supplies and tools. That’s going to slow things down since we have to check every inch of anything coming through the gates now. Our people are already exhausted.”
“Tell Justice you need more men.” It sounded simple enough to Trisha.
“We’re stretched thin already.” Slade leaned back in his chair. “He’s put as many men here as he can without weakening the defenses at Homeland. We’re already using double the manpower that we’ll actually need when we’re up and running because we have to monitor so many humans.”
Trisha held out her hand and waved it to get their attention. “Uh, what about the women?”
“The women?” Slade stared at her with a frown. “What about them?”
201
“There are at least three dozen New Species females that I know about at Homeland. Why don’t you bring them here?”
Slade shook his head. “They are to be protected. Our females are few.”
She frowned at him. “Did anyone ask them what they wanted? Have you seen some of your women? I think they are more than capable of handling the job of counting some humans and doing some of the security work. I saw cameras so I assume you have a monitoring room? How many of your men have to do that? Put the women there if you don’t want them manning the gates or having direct contact with the construction workers.”
“It’s a good idea,” Brass stated.
Slade hesitated. “It’s a great idea.” He smiled at her. “Let me see if Justice is agreeable to it and if the women would be interested in helping out here.”
“What about housing?” Brass stared at Slade. “Where would we put them?”
“The top floor of the hotel has been finished. There are ten suites up there with two sleeping rooms in each of them so that’s about twenty bedrooms.”
“Would it be safe?” Trisha remembered that Brass hadn’t wanted to put her there when Slade had suggested it.
“I don’t see why not. Those men didn’t attack it before due to how many people are present and how tight security is around the larger structures with the ongoing construction.” Slade paused. “There isn’t any other option.”
“I don’t know,” Brass hedged. “Setting fire to the hotel would be a good way to do it if the humans want to cause trouble. It’s the biggest structure at Reservation. I would worry our females could be trapped in a fire if we put all of them on the top floor.”
“You’re right.” Slade agreed. “It was a good idea but we just can’t house them, Trisha. We can’t put them in harm’s way if there is even a risk of danger. As much as I need the help, I can’t exactly ask them to room with the men.”
“You could bring in a few motor homes.” Trisha shrugged. “Women don’t mind sharing with each other usually and you’ll have them working in shifts, right? Maybe park them inside the wild zone and ask Valiant and the others keep an eye on them.
Just scrap the rebuilding of the cabin. That way none of the construction workers have any reason to be out there.”
