Ted watched the transport fly away over the town, gaining height and speed until it became a speck in the distance and then his eyes couldn’t see it anymore. He sighed and turned back inside to go into the clubhouse. They’d be back. They all took good care of each other while they were out.

It was an old man’s worry. He had every right to be worried, Frankie and Morgan were both on that transport, and he’d stopped going in to say good bye while everyone was leaving because they started a fight over the fact that Frankie insisted on body guarding her sister.

Ted didn’t know why Morgan got uptight about it. From what he heard, Frankie didn’t precisely keep her from charging into the fray whenever she felt like it. As long as the fray wasn’t too big or Morgan wasn’t expressly needed in her sniping position, Frankie was more than happy to let Morgan have fun getting into the fight. As long as Frankie could be by her side and make sure she didn’t get killed or hurt. Morgan had six pups and Frankie wasn’t about to see any of her nieces or nephews go without a mother. It was a right admirable trait. It made Ted worry like a dog at a bone the entire time they were gone about everything that could go wrong with Frankie right by her sister’s side.

According to Frankie, this was supposed to make him feel better. When the fecal matter struck the oscillating device, Ted didn’t know if Frankie’s presence was going to actually help or not. Thus, he worried.

However, Frankie was now supposedly a full grown adult and could make her own choices. Despite the fact she still lived in the upstairs corner bedroom. This included deliberately putting herself in harm’s way in order to protect her sister.

Half of Morgan’s argument was that Frankie didn’t go out with Flint. Frankie always riposted that Flint stayed where he belonged. And Flint himself always stepped back, struggled not to laugh and let the sisters fight.

All the fighting ruined good byes. Ted made sure to say good-bye to each of them individually. He didn’t want his last memories of them to be them all angry at each other.

He went inside the clubhouse and stopped inside the door.

Quinn slumped against the bar with a drink in front of him, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.

Ted looked at the clock. It was far too early to be drinking. Shouldn’t Quinn be on the same transport that had taken off into the sky no less than twenty minutes ago? He went over to the bar and leaned against. He gestured at the bartender, ordered a coffee, and looked over at Quinn, grunting.

Quinn looked over at him.

The bartender slid a mug of coffee onto the bar. Ted picked up the creamer and poured it into his mug. “Shouldn’t you be somewhere important?” he asked.

“Brand’s punishing me,” Quinn mumbled.

Ted carefully set the creamer down, picked up his coffee and took a sip. “Now, forgive me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall you doing anything dire to be penalized lately.”

“Other than crashing the transport.”

“When you crash the transport, you fix the transport, which you have done. So ergo, unless you’ve done something else I don’t know about, you aren’t being punished,” Ted said. He glanced over at Quinn. Brand must have said something, and Quinn had assumed it was punishment.

“If I’m not being punished, then why did Brand send a stranger on this mission instead of me? And he transferred me to his team.”

“Brand sent the prospect with Savannah,” Ted said.

“Yeah.” Quinn sat up. “Ordered me out. He was dressed in armor already.” Quinn paused. “We have a new prospect?”

“Yes. The stranger Brand sent with Savannah.”

“And no one told me?”

“You were busy fixing the transport.”

“Does Savannah know?”

“She voted for him,” Ted said. Ted sipped his coffee. “Sounds to me you got a transfer and a promotion, instead of working with the V. President, you’ll be working with Brand.” Ted decided to keep quiet on the fact that usually Brand put people on his team working close with him that needed extra training or extra protection, or needed to be swatted upside the head with a rolled up newspaper until they straightened out. Thus Brand’s team tended be in the words of Savannah ‘a bunch of trigger happy maniacs.’

Brand considered his team rough and tumble. Savannah considered her team to be a weapon of accuracy and precision. Brand thought that Savannah’s insistence on specialties, and tendency to plan the hell out of everything, took the joy of the unexpected out of the job. Then again, Brand filled her team with people that could actually work with her. Quinn was one of the few who didn’t seem to mind Savannah’s ways. And Brand had transferred Quinn, who Ted figured ‘trigger happy maniac’ could apply to, out of that team to his. The question being, what behaviors was Brand looking to straighten out in Quinn?

Quinn slumped again. “But Brand has Rio to pilot.”

Ted looked at him over the coffee cup. “Sounds like you’re making a presumptuous assumption.”

Quinn flushed. He ducked his head. “I guess.”

“And like you’ve got a vacation,” Ted added. “Though if you are perishing for something to do, I’m sure there’s a handyman project around here I can find for you.”

Quinn’s eyes widened. He pushed the drink away. “No. No. I’m good.” He stood up and left.

Ted snorted. He straightened, walked to the office, and poked his head inside. Brand sat at his desk with his feet up on it crossed at the ankles, his elbows on his chair arms and his fingertips pressed together.

“You manage a good bye to Savannah?” Ted asked.

Brand flicked his eyes at him. “Of course.”

“You remind her about the new prospect.”

“No.”

“You sent him along.”

“She won’t need reminding then, will she?” Brand smiled.

Ted snorted. He’d known Brand was up to something. “Did you tell the prospect about things then?”

“No,” Brand dragged it out.

Ted eyed him. One of these days, one of his pranks was going to get Brand hurt. “Is there something you know that the rest of us don’t?”

“He’s Special Forces.” Brand paused. “Former.” He tapped his lips with his index fingers and smiled.

Ted had seen that the prospect wore military style tags. He hadn’t thought it meant anything important. A lot of the Club members wore military style tags as a fashion statement. He’d thought wrong. That conspiratorial gleam was back in Brand’s eye. Ted debated calling Brand on it and asking him what he thought he was doing. “Interesting,” he said instead. He paused. “He hadn’t been tagged yet.”

Brand blinked. Once. It was his betrayal that he was truly surprised. “I forgot that,” he said.

Ted restrained from rolling his eyes. The tracking tags were Brand’s quirk, not anyone else’s. To have Brand forget meant that his mind was on something else entirely. Probably whatever nefarious plans he had in mind for the Prospect.

“I’m sure Savannah didn’t,” Ted replied. He knew how meticulous Savannah could be about her pre-fight checks. The girl had been meticulous about everything else as a child. She wasn’t about to change now.

Brand grinned. “Poor Prospect.”

Ted snorted. “I think I’ll have Darkside do some digging on him.”

“Interesting,” Brand repeated back to him.

Ted knew it was the thing that Brand wanted him to do. Ted took a swig of his coffee, turned around and left. He’d bounce ideas off the programmer and hacker and see if she had any suggestions on what Brand was up to with their newest member from whatever information they could find.

---

Gideon didn’t open his eyes again until the transport settled and he could tell they were at level flight, and he heard people moving about. Morgan had raised the armrest between the seats she and Frankie had been using. Frankie was missing, and Morgan had turned in her chair creating an impromptu bed. She looked cool as a cucumber with her eyes closed, like she was taking a nap.

He checked the cockpit. Frankie and Spike were playing a holographic game, and had joined Skyler and the apparent CO who’d jammed a piece of metal into his ear that he didn’t want. Whose name he didn’t know. It might be good to know it. He didn’t want to call her ‘Hey, cutie.’ That might leave a bad impression. Something told him she wasn’t the type who liked to be called cute. Maybe it was the way she’s said it as an insult earlier.

Dana pulled out a bouncy ball and started throwing it against the opposite side of the ship. It hit right between Jordan and Blake’s heads.

Blake opened the bag at his feet, pulled out his latest knitting project, and picked up his last stitch and began to knit, his needles clacking together. He flicked a glance at Dana. “Are you going to do that the entire trip?”

Dana tossed the ball in the air. “And knitting is manly.” He caught it and smirked at Blake.

Blake grinned. He knew the long history of knitting and men doing it on naval ships to pass the time and had been over this with Dana before. He wasn’t fazed with Dana’s dismissal of his hobby. “It is.”

Dana rolled his eyes. “What are you working on now?” The yarn in Blake’s bag was maroon and white, the primary colors of the Club.

“A hat for the prospect. It gets cold in the winter and he doesn’t have one.”

Eberron grinned.

Gideon felt like sinking further into his chair. That was nice of Blake, he guessed, but all this attention was beyond uncomfortable. He snuck a glance at the cockpit again. The girl appeared to be peering over a map. His eyebrow rose a little. It looked like she had a chip of metal in her nose.

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Dana threw the ball again. It hit the wall next to Blake’s head, closer to his ear this time. Blake paused his needles and glared at him. Dana caught it and glared back.

Morgan spoke up from her seat. “Did you ever notice that if you get more than two boys in a room, they have to whip out and measure each other’s dicks?”

Blake and Dana flushed. Eberron grinned. And Dana started squeezing the ball instead of throwing it, taking the hint.

Morgan half smiled and settled back into her nap.

“You’re over-planning,” Skyler said from the cockpit.

“I am not,” Savannah replied.

“Here we go again,” Eberron murmured, and turned on the holographic device in his wrist and started to tinker with different shapes.

“Yes. You are,” Skyler reiterated. “You need to relax, Savannah.”

Gideon perked up. That was her name, Savannah, since it was oh so polite of her to introduce herself and all. He forgot or didn’t care to remember that he hadn’t tried to introduce himself either. Savannah could shorten to Savvy, he supposed. Was she this mysterious Savvy? Savannah, he rolled the name in his head. Savannah was a pretty name, a relaxing name.

If he had told her that, she would have told him it was an overly long three-syllable name that equated into a mouthful. It didn’t shorten well either, Savvy, Sav, and Anna. She was not and never had been an Anna.

“I’m fine.” Savannah zoomed in on part of the map and continued to make plans in her head.

Skyler narrowed her eyes and looked over. “No. You aren’t. You’re over-planning again.”

Savannah didn’t look up. “I like having plans for contingency operations.”

Skyler’s head bounced up and down as she spoke. “Stop with the big words. You are over-planning.”

“My planning could save your life,” Savannah riposted.

Skyler looked over and sighed in exasperation. “You cannot plan for every single unexpected change in situation. You need to relax. Did you get—”

Savannah’s hand lashed out and hit a button, cutting the sounds from the cockpit from the rest of the ship as a shield of colored light appeared inside the open doorway.

“—laid before we left?” Skyler continued. She could care less about the aural shield.

Frankie slapped a hand over her eyes. If she thought that it would do any good, she’d tell Skyler that Savannah was already annoyed because of the extensive repair job they’d completed in a hurry. Savannah hated hurrying, and because of the prospect, and now was not the time to be poking her about her sex life. Frankie knew that Skyler wouldn’t care. She covered her eyes and braced herself for the explosion.

Savannah’s jaw tensed. “My sex life is none of your business.”

Oh, that wasn’t as bad as Frankie thought it would be. Savannah must have had a bit more sleep than Frankie knew about. Frankie cracked her fingers open to check Spike’s play on the game.

Skyler ignored the warning signals. “I made it my business. Answer the question.”

“I did answer the question, the answer was none of your business.” Savannah rolled her eyes.

“Which means no.” Skyler crossed her arms. “You need to relax and live a little.”

“I’ll relax when I’m dead,” Savannah said and muttered something about the terrain.

Skyler could care less about the terrain and cared more about Savannah’s happiness. She had an odd way of showing it. “Surely there is someone you could have had a good time with.”

Spike didn’t look up from the game. “Like you had a good time with your oh-so-secret assignation with Cole.”

Skyler ignored the fact her relationship with Cole, which was supposedly a physical thing and neither would admit to otherwise, was supposed to be a secret. “Exactly!” Skyler paused. “I mean, what about the prospect?”

Savannah didn’t look up. “What about the prospect?”

“He’s new. He’s hot. Look at those lips. Those are kissable lips. You have kissable lips. The two of you can have kissable lips together and kiss.”

Frankie tucked her hair behind her ear. “Everyone is talking about him,” she said.

Savannah looked up and glared back at Gideon. “Then everyone can see to his settling in.” She scowled and went back to her map.

“He’s tall. He’s dark. He’s handsome. He’s got a voice to make your nerves melt,” Skyler continued with Gideon’s virtues as she saw them.

Savannah looked back again. She considered him. Skyler’s cliché and quick description didn’t really do the prospect justice. He certainly was masculine enough with a square jaw and the ‘I haven’t shaved in two days and don’t give a damn’ stubble. His hair was long enough to finger comb and with the earring, he had gone from being slightly polished, military poster boy, handsome to this side of rebel, bad boy that she found almost impossible to resist.

And his eyes, they still bugged her but she couldn’t pin down why. It was something about their shape. And Skyler did have a point. His voice was smooth and dark and could make a girl melt. If he had the muscles to back it up. She’d been close enough to smell him and, she wanted to bite the inside of her lip as her hormones surged a little. She wouldn’t mind being under him, all hot and sweaty with that voice crooning in her ear and, she was tempted.

Then she remembered all the other men in the Club that fit that same description and fueled her hormonal fantasies. Some of them were her age, some of them not.

She looked back at Skyler and rolled her eyes. “We are drowning in tall, dark, handsome, melting voice men.” She didn’t see how this one was any different. Plus, he wasn’t wearing eyeliner. She preferred her men in eyeliner.

“You shoved your breasts in his face, Savannah,” Skyler pointed out.

Savannah looked down at her chest. Her chin almost hit her collarbone. She had a nice chest in her opinion. It would be nice if someone would appreciate it other than her. “Lucky him?”

“Savannah!” Skyler slouched into her chair.

“I’ve been saddled with a god damn greenie and you’re talking about how I should have sex with him,” Savannah snapped and looked over at Skyler.

She wanted Quinn. She had no idea of the prospect’s strengths, weaknesses, or his basic capabilities. She couldn’t fit him into the group when she had not the basic information about him. Plus, she’d been rather busy fixing Quinn’s latest screw up with the transport and she wanted Quinn where she could see him for the next year or two. Then he wouldn’t do the same joy riding tactics again and undo all their hard work.

She hadn’t had a full night sleep in two days—that midday nap didn’t count. “When exactly was I supposed to accomplish this? We finished fixing the transport this morning.”

“I was doing the exact same things you were and I still managed to find the time.”

Spike spoke up. “And consequently, got less sleep.”

Skyler tossed her chin in an effort to get the curls out of her eyes. “Sex is better than sleep.”

Spike decided to turn her needling to Savannah before Skyler started going into her and how much sleep she’d gotten. “You could always join the mile-high club,” she suggested.

“I don’t think so.” Savannah’s tone was icy.

Spike smirked. Savannah was definitely cranky. Better Savannah than her.

Frankie grinned and moved her piece across the board. “You’re going to be his sponsor.” She almost started bouncing where she sat. Oh, this was exciting.

Savannah hadn’t been a sponsor before, and this new guy was hot. Savannah was lucky. She was going to be able to know all about him, and be around him much more than the other girls in the Club. This was going to be great. It was the thing Savannah needed, new blood. Besides, it was time for a change in subject before Savannah did explode.

“If I wasn’t, Quinn would be here,” Savannah said. She knew how her Grandfather thought. “I’d rather deal with Quinn.”

Frankie pouted. Okay, Savannah didn’t see it that way. “Oh come on,” she said. “He is hot. I mean, not like my Georgie, to say otherwise would be disloyal, but he is hot.”

“He’s bachelor of the year,” Savannah said. “It doesn’t mean I’m having sex with him.”

Frankie sighed. Savannah was acting like she didn’t like the guy. “You don’t know him.”

“Thank you for proving my point.”

“I wasn’t talking about sex, Savvy.” Frankie twirled the ends of her hair around a finger. “I was talking about how you don’t know him yet and you’re already being mean to him. I heard that he’s really polite and nice.”

“How am I being mean to him?” Savannah glanced back at Gideon again. “We’ve exchanged less than one hundred words and suddenly I’m mean to him!”

Frankie lifted her nose. “You aren’t being nice either.”

Savannah looked down at Frankie. “According to Skyler, I shoved my breasts in his face, how much nicer do you want me to be?”

Frankie ignored that. “As his sponsor, it wouldn’t kill you to be a little nicer to him.”

Spike snorted. “Does he know that you’re his sponsor?”

“If I know Grandfather, he doesn’t know he has a sponsor,” Savannah said.

“You could try smiling,” Frankie suggested. “And you haven’t looked at him more than thirty seconds.” Savannah needed to find her manners, cranky or not.

“I have so,” Savannah retorted.

“You have not.” Frankie straightened. “Skyler has a point. Everyone in the Club is talking about this guy, and you haven’t had the decency to say hello and introduce yourself.”

Spike coughed. “Right, shoved breasts in his face and he doesn’t know your name. Good one, Savannah.”

Frankie set her chin. “And you’re the VP here. You should be setting an example.”

Savannah reached up and rubbed her forehead. There was that. The prospect was, the prospect, a probate member to the Club and she was the vice president. She might as well be a princess and him a peasant. The remnants of the earlier temptation died. There was no way that she could have sex with him. There was way too much power imbalance, especially since she was his sponsor. Grandfather would have words with her about it if she did.

No. She wasn’t having sex with the Prospect. And didn’t they have other more important things to be worried about at the moment than her sex life and how she was treating said prospect? “Doctor. We have a doctor in distress here. I will find time to be nice to the prospect after we rescue said doctor.” And after she got a hot shower, decent food that she could appreciate eating, and sleep.

Spike nodded. “And since he’ll be following her, he’ll have plenty of time to check out her ass.”

“Thank you, Spike. Not helping,” Savannah said and glared at Gideon again. “He better not check out my ass.”

“No. No. No.” Skyler waved a hand. “We want him checking out your ass. That is a good thing, especially in the having sex goal.”

Savannah gritted her back teeth. “I do not have a goal to have sex.”

Skyler lifted her chin. “I have it for you.”

Savannah reached up and rubbed her temples. “You do know that is a ridiculous goal, right? Having a goal about something intimate and personal for another person kind of flies in the face of logic and reality.”

“I’m over here living in fantasy land that someday you are going to have a sex, relax, and be happy!”

Savannah looked over her shoulder at Gideon once again and looked at Skyler. “With the prospect?” she asked, her tone incredulous. She didn’t need sex to be happy.

“With anyone at this point.”

Savannah settled back into her seat, determined to ignore the prospect for the rest of the flight. “Maybe you should fly the transport and get your nose back into your own business.”

“No. I don’t care how many times you bite it off.”

Savannah rolled her eyes and went back to the map.

“You’re over-planning,” Skyler said again.

---

“Yeap,” Eberron muttered as the aural shield went up. “Saw that coming.”

Jordan grunted and turned on his glasses, apparently settling in with a book or something similar.

Gideon kept an eye on the girls in the cockpit. Eberron seemed to think that the aural shield cutting them off from the rest of the transport was a normal occurrence. It made Gideon uneasy that Savannah felt there was something to be talked about that she didn’t need the rest of the transport overhearing. Were they talking about him up there?

He wasn’t deluded to think it was all about him. Whatever the question was had been on Skyler’s part, and there were a lot of things that could end the ‘did you get’ part they had all heard. He didn’t like it was all. Four girls in one small cockpit that all looked similar in age. If his experience was to go by, there was definitely gossip going on up there.

Gideon frowned at the girls. “They’re talking about me,” he muttered. He could tell. Savannah kept looking over her shoulder at him and half the time she was glaring. He didn’t know why she was glaring at him. He hadn’t done anything as far as he could tell. He didn’t know what he’d done to annoy her, unless it was his existence.

“You’re a popular topic of conversation,” Eberron said.

“Can I throttle her?” Gideon asked. “Will throttling help?” he asked. Savannah and the rest of them were acting like his little sister.

“No and no.”

Gideon sighed. “I wouldn’t really throttle her,” he muttered. He didn’t want Eberron thinking he was a complete and utter jerk. It was an expression used in his family when dealing with his little sister, mostly. They didn’t mean it. It was an expression of frustration, and sometimes worry or downright fear when she did something that made their hearts stop.

“Frustration is a common emotion when dealing with the Fearsome Foursome. Have a cookie,” Blake said, and fished a wrapped chocolate chip cookie out of his bag, handing it across Eberron to Gideon.

Gideon blinked and took it. The four of them had a group name. This did not bode well. He tore the wrapper open and nibbled on the edge of it, not knowing how sugar and chocolate chips would help but he’d take Blake’s word for it on the emotional issues. Plus, who would turn down a free cookie?

“Is there one for the rest of us in there?” Eberron glanced at Blake’s bag. What else was he hiding? And Blake shouldn’t bring cookies unless he brought enough for everybody. Leave it to Poppy to give her husband snacks. Or maybe it was the Poppet sneaking cookies into the bag while her mother wasn’t looking.

Blake went back to knitting. “Are the Foursome talking about you?”

“With the shield up, you never know.” Eberron paused. “Plus you never get frustrated with the Foursome like the rest of us.”

Blake smiled and didn’t reply.

Eberron turned to Gideon. “He thinks he has this great secret for dealing with them.” Eberron narrowed one eye. “Blankets and candy are not great secrets.”

“Those aren’t the secret,” Blake said.

“I haven’t done anything to make her aggravated,” Gideon mumbled and took another bite of the cookie.

Eberron snorted. “With Savannah, half the time you don’t have to do anything.”

Morgan’s eye opened. “Boys,” she said. She had six kids. They all knew this, including the prospect. This was her time to relax and nap. They were acting the same age as her toddlers. It was past time for them to be quiet and settle down.

Blake reached into his bag and handed Eberron a cookie. Eberron grinned.