Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9) by Mark Wandrey (best management books of all time .txt) 📗

“I had these modified for you over a year ago. Binnig shipped them, and I kept them in a warehouse in Sydney. Only delivered a couple days ago.”

“It was meant to happen this way.” Shadow’s voice, nothing more than a whisper, sent a twitch through Rex’s ears.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Drake said, bouncing up on his toes.

“The first CASPers ever made for a non-Human,” Edgar said, sounding satisfied. “Let’s try ‘em on for size.”

* * *

Sonya adjusted her haptic suit for the seventh time, though it fit perfectly. She listened to Edgar, but couldn’t tear her eyes from the sleek gleam of the CASPer.

She’d worked on several with Dailey over the years, but this…

This.

This gorgeous thing was as good as new. Was hers.

“You gonna get in, or you gonna make eyes at it all day?” Dailey fell into position next to her, exchanging a nod with Edgar.

“We aren’t—they have to check the systems and—”

“And the easiest way for us to do that is for you to get in the bloody thing.” Dailey waved his slate at her. “Already gonna take extra time without pinplants, so if you’d move your furry behind into the open and waiting set of armor expressly made for you, there’s a good girl.”

Sonya flattened her ears and stared at him for a long moment, but he shook the slate again, unrepentant. Given she had no appropriately snappy comeback, she tilted her head back toward the CASPer and considered its height. Though she’d likely make the leap, she’d also likely scrabble a bit and probably hit something she didn’t want to inside the armor. She pushed aside the temptation to show off and climbed up properly, not deigning to glare at the mechanic who so richly deserved such an expression.

He climbed up behind her, and she also restrained herself from slipping a foot and delivering a glancing blow to his face.

“Left foot in,” he said, and nearly did get a kick in reply.

“I’ve been in CASPers before, Dailey. Helping your old arse get work done.”

“Then stop nancying about and get in the bloody thing, she-wolf.”

Sonya growled, barely audible, annoyed because he wasn’t entirely wrong to push her. She’d been in and out of all the Silent Night CASPers and knew her way around them, but without pinplants or the appropriate physiology for the very Human machines, she’d never been properly hooked up to one.

The fact that their father had done this reminded her how seriously he took the family business and their role in it. No matter how he’d delayed, treating them as children even after they’d been declared ‘adults’…he’d done this. The warmth in her gut was at least partially nerves, but not entirely.

“All right, Sun?” Ripley called from the next suit, excitement making her words run together.

“Wishing we’d gotten pinplants in Sidney?” Drake added, actual amusement in his tone.

If Drake was making jokes, she really needed to clear her head and focus. Sonya grunted a reply to them both, then eased herself officially into her—her—CASPer.

“Check the connections in your legs before you get too comfortable. The right clips used to take finagling in my old ride,” Edgar said, standing back and observing each of them.

Sonya glanced over the edge of the open suit and nodded at him, then turned to take in the young humans in their CASPers, a bit ahead and already sealed into their rigs.

“What was that song you used to sing, Dailey?” Sonya asked, looking at her crotchety mechanic and pitching her voice to carry. “‘Left leggy gets three peggies, then clip the right extra tight?’ You make that one up yourself?”

“Settle down, cheek. Imagine me, singing.” He glared back at her, but even out of the corner of her eye she could see the hint of a smile breaking through.

“You do hum to yourself when you’re doing diagnostics,” Ripley called before ducking into her CASPer.

“You’re all furry monsters, and I’m gonna make sure you go to space with blanks.”

Space?

Sonya froze in the middle of connecting the last links to her legs. Deployment. Her father had said it, though the revelation of CASPers designed for her and her siblings had chased the thought right out of her head.

Hewers and the younger cadre were suiting up, and so were her and her siblings, their mother didn’t approve, and—

“We’re going?” she breathed, not meaning to say the words aloud.

“Of course you’re going.” Seeing the shock on her face, Dailey quite obviously bit back whatever additional ridiculous insult he was going to add. “Think we’re laying out all this capital for you to wander around an empty base? Though I’d like to see Drake take it on the water.” He raised his voice on the last, earning himself a laugh from Rex, and an actual snort of amusement from Drake.

“CASPer surfing,” Ripley mused, popping back out of her suit. “You know if you get the jets properly balanced and—”

“How about you stop wasting time with jokes and get hooked up so you can actually, maybe, take it for a walk?” Edgar said, not quite yelling.

Sonya shook her head sharply—exasperating Edgar, while entertaining, was definitely not the goal today. Chiding herself to focus, she made all the appropriate links between her suit and the CASPer, fumbling only twice, and instead of the all-clear, gave Dailey her best impression of Hewers’ double finger-guns.

“Check,” the mechanic muttered, then verified all the connections on his slate. Giving her one more glare for good measure, he straightened out of the way and thumped the shoulder of her suit.

The controls were familiar from both of the courses her father had made them run and the long stretches of evenings she’d spent with the techs helping bring the Human suits back to fighting shape after contracts. Pleased, she closed herself in,