Oren immediately broke into a huge smile, punching Barrett in the hip and getting a clip across the back of the head in return, Cai simply smiled his faint smile and inclined his head once.
“What this will mean, really, is that you all get to argue over who got the most thankless job, as it’s not going to be the party you thought it was; you especially, Oren!”
“We’re going to be getting the ship sorted as quickly as we can. I mean in the air today, if at all possible, so we need to go through the ship’s old crew and see if any of them are okay, or if they’re all assholes.”
“We also need to win the ship’s engineers around to joining us, preferably by talking, but if not, with bribery or whatever else we need to use, in order to get them working on the ship. Once it’s air-worthy, space-worthy…what do you call it?” I asked Oren, my train of thought momentarily derailed.
“Flyin’, laddie; we call it flyin’ or able to fly,” Oren said, his gravelly voice laced with amusement.
“Well, it’s feckin ‘flight-worthy’ from now on,” I shot back at him, getting a wink from Cai as Barrett and Oren grinned at me.
“So, once it’s flight-worthy, we will be taking a quick trip out to find your mate Decin and see if we can recruit him. This is where it gets a bit harder, though, as we can’t have him returning to Himnel if he’s not willing to swear to me, and that includes his crew. If we can convince him to join us, help us get things sorted here, and help defend the Tower, that’ll be great. If not, well, we might have to take measures to make sure he doesn’t return to help Barabarattas."
"I’d prefer that be by grounding or taking his ship and making them walk back, but if it means shooting him down, then so be it. I’m sorry.” I clapped a hand on Oren’s shoulder and made sure he knew it wasn’t my preferred choice.
“After we’ve got him taken care of, one way or the other, we need to head to the village that the ship raided before coming here, to see if we can help people, and convince them to join us. If they won’t, that’s fine; it’s their choice, as they’re not in command of anything that’s a threat to us, or—hopefully—close enough to the cities to spread any word. With luck, they’ll join us, though, and we can take some of the villagers that have sworn with us to help convince them. Also, we need to empty the ship as much as possible, in case they want to bring furniture or larger amounts of goods. God knows we need it.” I met Oren’s eyes, getting a sigh from him, but he nodded his understanding at the same time.
“Aye, laddie, that do make sense. Decin do be a prick at times, but he does no’ love Himnel or Barabarattas. He be doin’ this fer his family, same as I were.”
“Well, hopefully he’ll be amenable to joining us, then. We’ll be trying to get your families out of Himnel as soon as we can, after all.” I turned my attention to Cai, and he straightened as I did.
“Cai, I want you to start organizing the people. Their first task is to help clear and fix the ship up as quickly as possible, then to start turning the Tower into a home. I want a list of recommendations from you and Isabella as soon as possible, with skills and abilities of our new people."
"We need to organize the farmers and get the food sorted out and get cooks to take charge of the food and arranging meals.”
“We’ve all just mucked about in the last few days because we’ve had no time to do anything else. Once we have a team to begin getting a kitchen in order, then we’ll need to prioritize bedrooms and comfortable sleeping arrangements. God knows our morale will take a dip fast enough if we don’t take care of that soon.” Cai nodded once and spoke up quickly.
“The kitchen is being taken care of already. Two of my fellow ex-slaves were skilled kitchen assistants until they fell afoul of an employer. They’ve been clearing out a large room on the twentieth floor; it’s close enough to the gardens on the sixteenth and twenty third floors that it’s not too hard to transport food to, and it’s low enough in the tower that its manageable to get meat up if the hunting parties are successful.” He coughed and looked a little embarrassed. “As to Isabella and the skills of the villagers, well, I shall look into that. I haven’t really had the chance to talk to her yet.” Oren grinned at him and elbowed him in the thigh hard enough to stagger him.
“Really? Ye looked t’ be talkin’ plenty afore.” The dwarf would be in serious danger of losing the top half of his head if his grin grew any wider, so I stepped in to move the conversation along quickly, trying to hide my smile at Cai’s discomfort.
“Well, there’s a baker called Krillek in the group that just joined us from the villagers, so there’s a bonus as well. Barrett, you are gonna absolutely hate me, but hell, I’ll be right there with you at least some of the time."
"I want you to take our soldiers and make them into two teams of fighters. I want the hunters training at first with the fighters, as I want them able to fight, so they can look after themselves. Then they’re going to learn to hunt to feed us all. The fighters are going to be in two teams, because one will be here to defend the people at any time. The other, well, they’re going to be on the ship with me, or roaming the wilderness with the hunters. I’ll be joining you each morning for the
