Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 43

Musketeer Space Part 53: The Many Deaths of Milord

Happy Musketeer Morning to you all!

I had a very festive birthday weekend, including a Gold Class viewing of Mad Max: Fury Road (ahh always nice to watch the apocalypse from a comfy chair), a self-inflicted Much Ado About Nothing marathon, and finally managing to perfect the coffee cake made from actual coffee.

If you’re coming to Continuum next week (eeee!) make sure to come up and say hi.

Also, I am launching an author newsletter shortly, for TansyRR and Livia Day. Sign up here!

Start reading Musketeer Space from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 52

Read a festive Musketeer Space prequel, “Seven Days of Joyeux.”

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE:

Milord has been imprisoned in a tower in the middle of nowhere by his sister-in-law the Countess of Clarick, under advisement from those interfering bloody Musketeers. He’s been working on his jailer, Marshal Felton, to convince her that he is the innocent one in this whole mess.

NOW READ ON!

This chapter is dedicated to D. Franklin, arts & small press patron extraordinaire. Thanks so much for supporting this project – if only there was tea and cake in this one!

Chapter 53: The Many Deaths of Milord



The first time that he died, he was not Milord De Winter, nor was he Auden d’Auteville. His name, if he had one at all, was a burst of light and shade in his own language, a brightness and a gleam that meant familiarity and home and me.

He was one of the Bright Ones, a legion of youngsters charged with scattering themselves across the alien Solar System and integrate themselves into the society that called itself humanity.

There were four of them in each pod, hurtling through the galaxy, away from the real suns, away from the light and the heat, anything they had ever known.

He (was he even a he at this point?) had no words for this loss, for the fear that swept over them all as they were shot like bullets into a Solar System that felt cold and grey compared to anything they had known in their youth.

Why not call it death?

He would never be bright and warm again.

The planet was cold and pale, too far from the sun which was itself a weak ball of yellow light, hardly worth bothering about.

Two pod-siblings were dead, shaken too badly on impact. A third had crawled ahead of him, out of the pod and into the wan sunshine. She stood, already forming her flexible scarlet limbs into the body she had learned to make in Basic Training.

He watched her as she gave herself two arms, two legs. She grew hair from her scalp, and nails from her fingertips. She stretched her waist thin and her hips wide; made globular breasts that seemed far too round to be realistic.

“Clothes,” she said hoarsely. “Don’t have enough… energy to stay warm, without clothes.”

Something had gone wrong with her heat source; she was already turning blueish and pale, simply from the contact between her misshapen feet and the fierce white ice-crust of the ground.

Winter, he realised. They had landed on the winter side of the planet. That was not in their mission parameters. It would count as a failing mark.

He could feel his own heat within his core, and it kept his muscles relaxed and protected even as he shaped his own body into the design he had worked on for so long.

Male, certainly. A sleek, practical silhouette with the appropriate musculature. Toes. He had worked so hard on his toes, on ensuring a deliberate inconsistency between them. To be too perfect was to stand out, and their mission was to integrate, to collect data.

To survive.

His pod-sibling moaned as her skin chilled too quickly. Her energy flickered. He stepped forward, pressing his chest to her back, so that she could warm herself on his heat.

As he drained her of the remainder of her light energy, she screamed. There was no one on this ice-crusted land to hear her. He burned with triumph, with the heat that meant survival.

The pod itself disintegrated, as it was meant to do, leaving only a small beacon behind, dug deep into the snow.

As he walked across the ground, towards the flecks of heat and light in the distance that meant some kind of civilisation, his feet steamed where they touched the snow.

The second time he died, he was the Honourable Auden d’Autevielle, husband to the Comte de la Fere. He had spent two years befriending Oliver with his wit and sarcasm and beauty, before pouring everything he knew about humanity into a dazzling seduction.

From lovers to husbands: it took less than another year for Olivier to fall so completely that he was willing to stand up to his remaining family members and assert his power as the Comte to marry whoever he damn well wanted to.

They were happy in their marriage, and it was true happiness, or as near to it as Auden had ever imagined he could have. Every year he made a discreet pilgrimage back to the snowy wastes of far north Castellion, to pour all that he had learned about these people into the blinking, impersonal beacon.

The war between his own people and the human solar system had ended now, but the work of data-gathering continued. There would be another war, and he was one of the weapons they were saving for the future.

Every year it became harder, to slide out of the warm bed and the man who loved him, to make that solitary trek, and to betray the planet that had become his home.

He was never entirely warm on Valour, and yet he no longer saw it in bleak shades of grey and white, either. There was colour, if you looked hard enough.

But the beacon – his people – knew too much, now. They knew about Olivier and the county of De La Fere. The only way Auden could escape them would be if he destroyed that life entirely: all the connections he had made and shared, and started again as a different person.

If he left his husband.

Auden gazed thoughtfully at the beacon, uploaded his report, and then returned home to the estate, to love, to Olivier, to warmth.

The following year, he stayed home. It was hardly a rebellion at all – he would go to the beacon, he knew that he would give in eventually. He was too terrified not to. And yet… he left it a day, and then another, telling himself that he would go tomorrow, that he had not truly made up his mind to turn rogue.

It was the beacon that made up his mind for him. At the beginning of the third day that he had failed to make his annual report, his skin began to burn.

The heat was pleasant at first, a familial warmth that filled him with light and manic energy. But the heat did not disperse. It poured over him in waves, sending him shivering one moment and sweating with heat the next.

It seemed like a common illness, to the humans. But the Honourable Auden d’Auteville fell into a feverish rambling, his whole body swamped with pain and heat and punishment.

By the time he had recovered anything like his usual sensibilities, it was too late. He was weighed down with heavy chains and cuffs, under sentence of execution by his own husband who had finally – terribly – discovered his secret.

Here is what he could have done:

1. Twisted his hands and feet into thin trailing shapes that could easily escape the cuffs.

2. Murdered the guards left to keep him from doing exactly that.

3. Made a new body and face for himself and begun again, on the far side of the continent, or elsewhere on the planet.

Instead, Auden placed all of his trust in the love that he had built between Olivier and himself. He believed, right up until the last minute, that his husband was incapable of striking the killing blow.

Humans knew so little about the Sun-kissed, even after fighting a war against them. One fact they all held to their hearts was that the only way to kill a Sun-kissed was to sever his head from his body.

It was an extremely useful myth.

There might be millions of ways for his kind to die on their own world, but Auden had seen for himself that the only way that the Sun-kissed could die on Valour was if they took damage while their bodies were cold.

Olivier Armand d’Autevielle, the Comte de la Fere, executed his husband on a beautiful sunny afternoon in an open courtyard on his own land. The event was attended by a planetary marshal, a Servant of the Elements, and several members of local government.

After Auden’s head was severed by the neck, his body was ritually burned in the Elemental fashion, in two separate locations.

Ten minutes later, he was reassembled in a bright beam of burning light, beside the beacon in the snow. He gave his report methodically, taking in all relevant data gathered in the last year, and providing particular account of the human response to his unveiling as an alien spy.

He brimmed with power and unspilled energy, practically glowing in his own skin after the – what should he call it? Restoration? Escape plan?

Rebirth.

As soon as the report had been uploaded into the sky, Auden (not Auden anymore) summoned every mote of energy he had, and blasted the beacon into motes of dust.

Now he was truly alone.

The body he shaped for himself next should have been completely different. It was a dangerous luxury, to keep any feature that resembled Auden d’Autevielle.

But that face, those limbs, those feet – he had designed them personally. They felt more like himself than his own bright red body of flexible, mutable limbs and squashy, unshaped face.

He liked his cheekbones. He could rule the world with cheekbones like those.

In the end, he allowed himself to shape his body into a being who could well have been Auden’s more stable older brother. He let his hair grow brown rather than silver, widened his nose a little, added more wear and tear to the face, and some width to the shoulders and rib cage.

He travelled south, far south, because there was no need to linger within a few days travel of that damned beacon any longer. He went from city to city, acquiring clothes and funds and political gossip.

Vaniel Stonewater had little in the way of a history or credentials to start with, and yet these things could be altered with comms technology.

The one thing he was best at, the skill he valued above all else: he was an excellent spy. So he built up different faces and bodies, variations on a theme: he became Slate and Grey as well as Stonewater.

Auden and Oliver had adored political theory – but their world had been small, it turned out, confined to their university and then to Olivier’s rural estate. Here, in the south, cities ate and drank New Aristocrat politics, and as Vaniel, he found a game that he could win all the time without growing bored; the rules were always changing.

One night, in a salon filled with beautiful people looking for sex and attachment as much as intellectual stimulation, Vaniel met a quiet young woman with laughter in her eyes, whose elder sister was desperate to marry her off.

“Milady Delia de Winter,” she told him when he asked her name.

“Winter,” he said with an inscrutable smile. “What a marvellously evocative name.”

“You don’t think it makes me sound cold?” she flirted.

“Quite the opposite, sweetness. Quite the opposite.”

Now, it was Vaniel de Winter’s turn to die. He had no illusions about that: Bee had always been a ruthless defender of her family when he was a part of it, and now that she saw him as her enemy, she would not hesitate to end him.

It was only a surprise she had not done it already. But she had orders, it seemed, or requests, at least, from someone with the authority to stay her hand.

Too much to hope that her Eminence the Cardinal was riding to his rescue? Theirs had been a partnership of convenience, and Milord was well aware that he had ceased to become convenient.

Still, the death of the Duchess of Buckingham would go a long way towards repairing their professional relationship, and Milord had a reputation to uphold.

Committing a murder remotely while locked in a tower, far from the victim… oh yes, that would go a long way to reminding people just what Milord De Winter was capable of.

Even if he would not be De Winter after tonight.

Marshal Felton came to him at midnight, when everyone else in this wretched tower was asleep. Milord sat with his feet up on the window seat as the familiar chimes of the security system indicated that someone was punching in a code.

He had already taken the dose of Vision, a clever drug that had once been used for naval commanders to see into the minds of all of their captains during an aerial battle. Combined with the Winter program, it made for a whole different kind of weapon.

When he closed his eyes, Milord saw Winter: the barefoot, silver-haired creature that reminded him so much of the person he used to be, before his husband killed him.

Winter was a flirt, a dangerous weapon, and a spy. All of his selves were spies.

He had created Winter himself, based on an integration program he bought on the black market from Mendaki traders: he was pretty sure they used it as some kind of long distance interstellar sex toy, but felt no need to have this suspicion confirmed.

The program was contained within tiny microchips that looked like grains of pepper and could be added to any food or drink. Once lodged inside the victim’s skin, they would implant the program’s personality directly into their brain.

Milord had no actual control of Winter, once the program was inserted. It played out its own games of mockery, subversion and occasionally even followed a path that he had indicated would be a very good idea.

The Winter he had dosed the Duchess of Buckingham with months ago, for instance, was a law unto itself. It had certainly performed the necessary tasks – pushing her towards the adultery she already desperately wanted to commit, nudging her to keep the coat that the ridiculous Prince Consort had already been foolish enough to wrap around her shoulders.

No, the true value of Winter was in the information it provided. Milord could check in with the program – with everything it had witnessed through the eyes of the Duchess of Buckingham – through his use of Vision.

Tonight, for instance, he learned that Buck had a house guest: a young man who had thwarted Milord more than once, and had an intimate connection to Dana D’Artagnan.

Killing Buck was a matter of duty. Killing Conrad Su would be a delicious treat: something to look forward to, when duty was done.

Milord relaxed, and wriggled his bare feet against the cool stone of the tower wall.

Felton finished entering the code, and stepped into the tower. “Milord,” she said in a low whisper.

He had her, then. Had manipulated her sufficiently to make her move in secret, against the Countess of Clarick. It was all highly promising.

If Milord was to use Felton, really use her, then she had to want to be used. The Winter program could only go so far.

“Did you come here to pray?” he asked silkily, stretching out along the ledge.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” said Felton in a whisper.

“It’s all right,” said Milord, keeping his voice gentle and soothing. “It’s not your fault. You have been caught up in a conspiracy not of your making. And you are on the wrong side. But you don’t have to be.”

“I don’t believe you. I don’t trust you,” said Felton, and yet when her eyes met Milord’s, he could not help but exult. He had cracked her open using only words and ideas. It was the best kind of seduction.

“Here,” he said, leaping lightly to his feet and crossing the tower floor, his warm soles stinging with the cold of the flagstones. “Share my wine, and we’ll talk. I will answer any question you have about the many crimes my sister-in-law has committed against Valour justice – all the name of friendship with those Musketeers, of all people.”

He could not resist a sneer at ‘Musketeers’ and he saw that Felton subconsciously mimicked him. Of course she had an ingrained dislike and distrust of the Regent’s own. She had been one of the Red Guards on Paris Satellite not so long ago.

Felton wet her mouth with the wine, and licked her lips, though it was more of a nervous habit than any particular desire for the wine. Not enough. She must drink deeper.

Milord continued, his voice lilting. “It is all Buckingham behind it, of course. Buckingham and her ambitions for this planet.”

“This planet,” said Felton, taking another swallow of wine, and there was something about the twist of her mouth as she repeated the words…

It occurred to Milord that the best tool for a seduction was knowledge. “What is it you most want, Marshal Felton? What is it that you need?”

“Want, need,” said Felton, waving the wine glass as if it offended her. “My whole life collapsed because of want and need. I lost Paris because of want and need. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Oh,” breathed Milord. He took the glass from her and pretended to sip, then passed it back to watch her take a longer swallow. “It is Paris you want. To return there.”

And that was enough to break the dam. “I hate this planet, with its New Aristocrats and its politics and its rain, and Elementals everywhere,” said Felton. “I was happy in the Red Guard, happy on Paris Satellite.”

“But what happened? Who took it away from you?”

“I fell in love with a Musketeer,” she said sourly. “With someone who did not care enough for me. I broke the fidelity clause of my marriage contract for three nights in the arms of Aramis, and when we were caught out – she moved on to another affair, while I was ruined for the Red Guard. Everyone on Paris is an oathbreaker, one way or another, but no one can afford to be caught.”

I see,” said Milord, watching the long, milky throat of Felton work around the wine that remained in the glass. He could not be sure yet, if the implant had taken hold. “What is it you want then, my dear? Revenge, or Paris?”

“Both, I want both. Even if the Cardinal forgave me my sins, I could not return to Paris while she was there…”

And oh, there it was. Still swimming with the heightened senses provided by Vision, Milord gasped as a wave of heat roiled around the tower room, and the vision of his younger, charming silver-haired self flickered into existence beside him.

For a moment, Felton staggered back, clearly seeing double. Then she swayed as the implant took hold, and her eyes focused on a single figure – on the illusion of Winter.

Milord captured the glass and set it aside, and Felton barely even glanced in his direction.

Winter moved towards her, his hips swaying and his smile blazing with heat. “We’re going to do such marvellous work together, Jan,” he promised her. “We’re going to kill a traitor. And when the Duchess of Buckingham is in the ground… I promise you, the Red Guard will welcome you back with open arms. And the Musketeer Aramis will never return to Paris Satellite alive.”

As for Milord himself, his next death was only just around the corner. He would reshape himself anew, and none of them would see it coming.

You have been reading Musketeer Space, by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Tune in next week for another chapter! Please comment, share and link. Musketeer Space is free to read, but if you’d like to support the project for as little as $1 per month, please visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. Milestones already unlocked include the Musketeer Media Monday posts, the Robotech Rewatch posts, and “Seven Days of Joyeux,” a special Christmas prequel novella which was released in December 2014. My next funding milestone will unlock GORGEOUS COVER ART.

Mad Max as Feminist Ally

It’s a few days since I saw Mad Max: Fury Road, and I’m still rolling it around in my head.

This movie.

I can’t even.

[The following contains much necessary swearing and also pretty much all the SPOILERS. Do like Margo did and watch the damn movie first.]

Other people have written and will continue to write about this movie as feminist science fiction, and its do-or-die Fuck the Patriarchy attitude. Furiosa is, let’s face it, the action heroine we’re all still going to be talking about in twenty years time, because men and women are like are punching the air about her. She’s our new Ripley, our 21st Century Sarah Connor.

Watch Furiosa load a shotgun. Watch Furiosa punch Max in the face, with her nubbins. Watch Furiosa drive a semi tractor trailer. Watch Furiosa fire a long shot, using Max’s shoulder to stabilize the gun barrel, as an alternative to using two hands! Watch Furiosa do anything you can do, but better, and with half the number of fingers.

I want to write about my personal reaction to the movie, because I’m taking this one personally, it’s got under my skin in a way almost nothing in a cinema has in a long, long time.

My partner took me for my birthday – I’d already started reading the feminist commentary, so I was all in, whereas he was mostly there for, you know, the Mad Maxness of it all. But afterwards what we talked about was gender and patriarchy, performative masculinity, rev-heads and rigs, feminist film gaze.

We talked about the “Max lusts for water not ladies” scene, and the symbolic use of bolt cutters, and how many women there were on the screen like, all the time, and my creeping worry through the film that Furiosa was going to die, and whether I would still be okay with the film’s revolutionary portrayal of women if she did.

He said at one point “I wasn’t sure ahead of time if it was going to be… your sort of thing,” and that was a viable sort of worry really, because I’ve been very bleh about cinema generally in recent years (I get my emotional narrative from TV where the writers live) and on the surface, this film was not a Tansy sort of risk. Given that he had taken me for my birthday, he wanted me to enjoy it…

Heh, little did he know that I had already pre-gamed with the feminists of the internet, even if I had managed to do so without too many spoilers. I knew going in that Kameron Hurley thought they hadn’t fucked up, and Anita Sarkeesian hadn’t approved of it but most of the rest of Twitter feminism disagreed with her, and that Liz Bourke was a little in love with it (her analysis of the Max/Water scene was the reason I was all in).

I’m an Australian which means I have watched all the Mad Max films, it’s one of those things like Vegemite and Neighbours that you have to have some kind of opinion on. My opinion was ‘eh it’s a thing, I get it, the second one was the good one I guess but now Mel Gibson has ruined everything retrospectively anyway’ but I wasn’t especially invested in it as a creative brand. My reaction to them bringing the franchise back was roughly on par with how I would feel if Crocodile Dundee went for another round. (omg if they did that now they would totally cast Chris Pratt, wouldn’t they?)

And then the movie started.

Here’s a thing you maybe didn’t know about me: I used to love action movies. I have seen Terminator 2 approximately 25 times. There used to be nothing I enjoyed more than a guns and explosions movie on the big screen. I genuinely enjoyed Under Siege. But liking action movies always felt like I was a tourist in a world that didn’t belong to me, and certainly didn’t see me as its intended audience. With very few exceptions (Rene Russo matching Mel Gibson scar for scar in Lethal Weapon Somethingth comes to mind, and The Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis and every frame of Linda Hamilton in T2) action movies felt like I was staying on someone else’s couch. That got less and less comfortable as I grew older, and eventually I stopped bothering.

I still don’t know if I can put into words how amazing it felt to see a movie like Fury Road that was not getting it wrong. It wasn’t just putting one strong, powerful, interesting woman into a genre that so often uses women as scraps and baggage and window dressing. It was telling a whole story where women were the centre, women were everywhere you looked. Different women. Surviving terrible things and living to tell the tale, or sacrificing themselves nobly for other women.

This movie is a giant screw you to the Michael Bay era of action movies (the casting of Megan Gale as a dust-caked matriarch Valkyrie makes this very pointed), to every poster or film that focuses on an actress’ butt instead of (or at the same time as!) her face, to every sexist joke that the female viewers have had to endure in order to watch some explosions on a big screen.

I could (and maybe will) write essays and essays and essays about the women in this movie, about Imperator Furiosa (holy hell, let me unpack the significance of that name) and the Splendid Angharad, Toast the Knowing and Capable and Cheedo the Fragile and the Dag. About the Valkyrie, the Keeper of the Seeds (SOBS), and the rest of the Vuvalini. This movie and its women are worth talking about.

“Patriarchy, it turns out, is prettiest when it’s on fire.”

Laurie Penny, Buzzfeed.

But right now, today, I want to talk about the men.

Max Max is an extraordinary figure of performative masculinity in this movie. He is lone hero, as he always has been. He is shaped by loss and sacrifice and he escapes a horrible, traumatising and dehumanising imprisonment to reach a poor substitute for freedom: a hellish two hour chase scene in a desert. He is our male everyman, our action hero, facing down the post-apocalyptic nightmare into which he has fallen, and putting one beaten, bruised and bloody foot in front of the other.

He is also a badass feminist ally. He doesn’t mean to be, at first. He is completely out for himself. He starts out entirely selfish and only gradually becomes invested in the survival of the women who have – with Furiosa’s help – already rescued themselves. He doesn’t bother to stop and view them as sexual objects because he has more important things to worry about. He is never a sexual threat to these women, and I was never for one second afraid that he might be, despite their early vulnerability and the fact that it took them a long time to accept that about him.

It takes Max and Furiosa and the wives a hell of a long time to fully trust each other, but it is an earned trust based on the shared experience. He leaves them three times in the film. First because he doesn’t give a damn about them (and is prevented from stealing their rig only because Furiosa is smarter than him). Second because they have reached their planned destination, even if it isn’t what they thought it was going to be (and he returns to them because he has a crazy idea that just might work, allowing them to get something closer to their original dream). Third, because they are finally as saved as they’re ever going to be, and it’s time for him to move on.

This is not actually his movie, and Max himself is well aware of that.

It’s fascinating to watch the use of male strength in the film, mostly as a violent threat performed by vicious, testosterone-fuelled revheads (many of whom are very young men) and their vile overlords who sit in positions of power and rule by fear. Compare this to Max, who is male strength and power personified, and begins the story barely able to function as a human himself but, once he makes a connection with the women he is on the run with, never thinks of them as anything other than human and important.

How do you set up a grizzled lone hero archetype to protect five escaping former sex slaves without patronising them? Like this. Max and Furiosa work as equal partners right from the start, as it becomes evident they have equivalent past trauma and bad ass skills. He defers to her experience and capability where relevant, and they pool their resources. Both of them assume the wives will not be equivalent to their own physical and martial abilities, but insist that they pull their weight – that the younger women attempt necessary tasks that will help the group. Max never assumes they are useless because they can’t afford to be; when one of the young wives steps up and volunteers for a more challenging or potentially violent task, Max (and Furiosa) trust them to give it a go.

One of my favourite moments in the film involves Max shooting one of their pursuers with a long range rifle of some kind – Toast the Knowing (seriously the names of these characters are fabulous) has been counting the bullets and warns him how few this gun has. When he is down to the final bullet, he pauses and then hands it to Furiosa, knowing she has a better chance of making the shot than he does. She uses him as her gun rest, and makes the shot count.

An action hero who makes the shot every time isn’t nearly as interesting as an action hero who is secure enough in his masculinity to defer to a woman’s experience and capability.

From here all the way through to the final scene where Max disappears into the crowd, it becomes obvious that he is not the protagonist of this film. The Mens Right Activists were right – this is TOTALLY covert feminist propaganda masquerading as another bloke-centred explodey action movie, while revamping one of the blokiest franchises of all time. And as this fantastic review notes, it gets away with it because it’s a bloody awesome movie. Entertainment goes a long way.

If you’re going to bring feminist propaganda to the masses, there are worse ways than in a giant exploding truck covered with knives. In case you haven’t seen Mad Max: Fury Road yet, it’s two hours of seat-clutching, wall-to-wall explosions, giant art trucks covered with guitars that are also flamethrowers, howling Technicolor vistas, and blood on the sand. When the credits rolled, I felt like my eyeballs had been to Burning Man without me. I was thoroughly entertained.

Max is not the protagonist. He’s the helper. He’s Obi-Wan and Gandalf and the (good) Terminator. He’s in this story to assist Furiosa on the way to her destiny. She’s the one with the verbalised backstory, the one with a dream they are heading for, the one who is bowed but unbroken before the mighty final act. Max is Santa Claus, handing out practical gifts of swords and healing cordial to the Pevensie children just before shit gets real. He’s not the hero – he doesn’t even want to be the hero. But he recognises something in Furiosa and her quest to find a good life and safety for the wives, and he decides to help her attain it before he goes back to his grizzled angry life as a barely-hanging on survivor who doesn’t care about anything but his occasional angsty flashbacks.

Most of this is unspoken, which is probably a good thing, because Tom Hardy’s changeable “Aussieish” accent is the flaw in the Persian rug of this otherwise perfect Road Trip From Hell. I choose to believe this is because his trauma at the hands of the war boys means he has basically forgotten how talking works. Max doesn’t speak much, in any case. In fact, he spends a good chunk of the first act of the movie tied to the front of one of the war boys’ souped up muscle cars like a mermaid figurehead, and even once he escapes that, he’s wearing a scold’s bridle for a really long time.

I didn’t say this movie was AT ALL SUBTLE in challenging gender conventions in SF dystopia and the action genre. Sure, the girls have to cut chastity belts off themselves, but he wears a SCOLD’S BRIDLE and needs the assistance of the women to get free of it.

The other fascinating feminist ally and unusual male character in the film is Nux, played by an almost unrecognisable Nicholas Hoult (it took me three quarters of the film to figure out who he was under all that white paint), who is set up as one of the out and out crazy war boys early on, and who I would have been quite happy to see violently killed at any point in the first half of the movie. Nux redeems himself through the expression of emotions, through one of the most gentle cinematic romances of all time, and through keeping his mouth shut long before the single act of sacrifice that is his final redemption. Max and his scold’s bridle and his rejection of gender norms in action films may not be subtle, but Nux provides us with a remarkably subtle and underplayed story of a young man who has been immersed in a grossly sexist culture his whole life, and is shocked into a new awareness that a) he has been complicit in a world that is designed to destroy women and b) it’s literally killing him too.

Another gorgeous, meaningful sequence: Furiosa is talking to Max about her quest, about her needs, and about how she is driven by a need for redemption. The camera then pans very slowly to Nux in the back seat with his new girlfriend Capable, and we see him nod to himself that yes, redemption is also what he’s after. He doesn’t need a whole scene to establish this; he simply responds to hers. Furiosa gets the focus and the gritty dialogue; Nux gets a thoughtful facial expression.

This is a ghetto-blasting, adrenalin-pumping, violent angry action movie in which the good guys are often silent while listening to women talk. What the everloving fuck.

[Also the cars, this movie made me care about cars and trucks and mechanics and desert sands in a way I never imagined before – Furiosa’s war rig is basically Atreu’s horse in The Never-Ending Story, it’s the TARDIS and Warehouse 13 and Serenity and Moya and and every mode of transport I’ve ever loved before, but it’s gross and oily and made of weapons; I will love it forever. Also the doof doof electric guitar rig with the massive speakers is the most Australian thing I’ve ever seen in a movie, this is our cultural heritage and our VERY SOUL. But hey let’s talk about the fact that Max’s car, the symbol of his survival and masculinity and freedom; the symbol of everything he has gone through to get here: his car is taken from him at the beginning of the movie and used against him as a weapon and he never gets it back.]

The feminism of this movie is subtle and unsubtle. It’s loud and funny and damaged and broken and sad (because dystopia is always sad) and it kicks patriarchy in the face, over and over again. Mad Max is right there, lending a boot for the kicking, and even Nux gets a couple of kicks in.

Because one of the messages of this film is, no fucking kidding here, that patriarchy hurts men too. They live in a terrible world, and everyone is hurting, not just because the environment is actively trying to starve them out, but because the society they have built is even more soul-sapping than the poisoned mud on the far side of the desert. Whole generations of young men (called War Boys and, tellingly, War Pups) have been bullied into a toxic gang mentality and rewarded with the dodgy panacea of awesome cars, Significant Steering Wheels, a religion based on being somewhere other than here, and being sprayed in the mouth with silver paint (what the FUCK, movie?). They are part of a culture that makes them think they can win, while the privileged old men still take everything they damn well want and to hell with anyone else.

At least the women in this movie know that their life is unendurable – the War Boys have been tricked into thinking that they’re on the top of the food chain, when they’re really just another mouthful of grass. That’s why, even though Furiosa is (and should) be the character in this movie who takes on a transcendant pop culture status, we also need to be paying attention to Nux.

Nux’s heartrending discovery that everything he believed in – religion, culture, great cars, protecting pretty ladies instead of shooting them off war rigs – has been a lie almost breaks him, and the women who threw him off their rig earlier in the movie (as was only right and proper) give him a second chance that he almost doesn’t deserve – to make amends, to do better, and to grow the hell up. It’s a beautiful thing to see.

Fury Road is a road map (pun absolutely intended) on how to reinvent and interrogate genre along gender lines: you can’t just let the female characters do all the work, though it helps if there are LOTS of women, and a diversity of characters so not all the pressure is on a single character to make up for all the ladyfail of the genre to date. To achieve something like progress, you don’t just write “strong female characters”, you have to play around with the narrative tropes of male characters as well – challenging the paradigm and the audience expectations from every angle.

Furiosa is extraordinary. She’s action hero and maternal guardian rolled into one; if Max is the masculine feminist ally and Nux the reluctant but redeemable feminist ally, Furiosa is that even more important figure: a woman who is strong and powerful enough to transcend the sexist bullshit of her society, a woman who has shot and punched her way through the glass ceiling, and then stops to help other, less powerful women along the way. We need our male allies in feminism, but we need our powerful women to be allies too, and not all of them are.

Too often, the female action powerhouse character is the only “strong female character” we get, and she is surrounded by men in order to emphasise her unusual status, and to make it clear that she is exceptional; that makes her less of a threat to patriarchal norms. A movie in which Furiosa was the only woman might still have been good, but not great; a movie in which she was the only ally and helper of the five wives would probably have been awesome, but might not hold the same symbolic resonance as one in which Max and Nux volunteer to be vehicles for the destiny of these women.

I’ve seen a lot of people comment on the fact that the person who wrote, directed and steered this film, who made so many of the choice decisions (including the deliberate choice to hire a woman as editor as insurance against him screwing this up) is a 70 year old white dude. You know what this means? This means there are no excuses for any creator of any demographic to keep perpetuating old fashioned, boring, and unchallenging genre traditions out of nostalgia, or ignorance, or an inability (unwillingness) to be flexible.

There are just as many outmoded, broken, severely damaging tropes about men as there are about women across many, many genres of film, literature and art. Let’s burn them all down, and find what new stories grow out of the ashes.

Roll on the George Miller imitators. May you all jump on his coat-tails for a while, and see where they take you.

I’m riding with Furiosa.

TWITTER EPILOGUE

Tansy Rayner Roberts @tansyrr

I think that inspiring @margolanagan to go see Fury Road today is the best thing I have achieved this month.

Margo Lanagan @margolanagan

Me too! *sobs, falls on your neck, passes you bag of seeds*

SOME LINKS (to be updated as I find more):

“Mad Max” Is A Feminist Playbook For Surviving Dystopia; Laurie Penny, Buzzfeed

My Reaction to Mad Max: Fury Road and the Utter Perfection that is Imperator Furiosa; nospockdasgay on Tumblr

Fury Road Feminism; Liz Bourke

Wives, Warlords and Refugees: The People Economy of Mad Max; Kameron Hurley

Do You Realize Mad Max: Fury Road Is A Miracle? Rob Bricken, i09

Mad Max posters improved by Daily Mail comments.

The Feminist Max Max (Ryan Gosling) Meme; the Mary Sue

ROBOTECH REWATCH INTERLUDE: Dana’s Confusingly Vague Super Dimensional (Non-)Ending.

Okay something a bit different in the Robotech Rewatch this week – I had FEELINGS to express once I got to the end of my Southern Cross rewatch, so I’ve written an essay about it.

Normal transmissions will resume next week!

I was a Teenage Hovertank Racer: or, Dana’s Confusingly Vague Super Dimensional (Non-)Ending.

Watching serialised television was an emotional minefield in the days before the internet. If you missed an episode, THAT WAS IT. It was gone, into the ether until such a time as a repeat showing flitted past your screens.

You just got used to the idea that there were bits you had missed. For a lot of shows, this didn’t matter, but it’s amazing how many kids shows in the 80’s actually did have a strong serialised thread running through them.

In some cases (like the ever-repeated Astro Boy) you could watch every single episode on a high repeat turnover and still miss stuff – I only discovered as an adult that the crucial ‘this explains Atlas and Livian’ episode was never actually screened in the English language dub.

When I discovered Robotech in my early teens, and fell in love with it, the current showing was about a third of the way through the Rick-Lisa-Minmei era, and it wasn’t long before I decided that I – Could – Not – Miss – Another – Episode. I don’t remember if it was screening before school, after school or on Saturdays, but I do know that I was hooked.

And also confused. Hooked and confused. Because I had no idea about Robotech being three separate (but similar) anime series stitched together by an English dub. When Rick and Lisa went off to space only for an entirely new cast to take over the show, I kept watching, hungry for every crumb of continuity, and often finding connections that weren’t there (like being convinced that Nova Satori was actually Dana’s mother Miriya for like, an embarrassing number of episodes).

Then, after Zor blew up the Invid Flower of Life and screwed up everything, it happened again. Dana and her crew were mysteriously missing in the next episode, it was years later and… oh, this again.

The arrival of character Scott Bernard or as I liked to call him, The Who Now? pretty much sealed my disconnection from the show. Because here was a character who claimed to know Admiral Hunter and all the other cool kids, was supposedly our connection to the lost SDF3 mission, but actually had nothing of any interest to share. Except that his dead girlfriend was voiced by the same actress who had voiced Lisa. (CONFUSING) And the SDF3 crew themselves never turned up. I kept waiting to find out what Dana and Nova and the rest of the 15th ATAC were up to, in this post-apocalyptic garden planet the Earth had now transformed into – surely they’d turn up at some point?

They didn’t.

At all.

I know plenty of people who adore the Third Robotech War/Mospeada era of the show, and I wish I had those fond memories of it – I did sort of like many of the characters – but I couldn’t get attached, not after being burned twice. It’s like that thing they did in Doctor Who where they killed off two awesome, compelling versions of the companion Clara before we got to meet the “real” one and frankly I wasn’t going to invest any emotional energy in her after that.

A little while after my first watch-through of Robotech, I discovered the novelisations, and HELLO, this was what I had been waiting for. The books by Jack McKinney, which I bought in solid 3-in-1 omnibus paperback, gave me the show that I sort of thought it was supposed to be.

In particular, he fleshed out the romantic and personal relationships that were often drawn very lightly in the show with greater depth. He added a quite adult sensibility, reinterpreting some of the relationships (which is why part of me is almost certain that Lisa and Rick were doing the friends with benefits thing long before they actually sorted themselves out) and using one of my favourite narrative devices: quotes from fake history books as chapter headings.

What these books gave me most of all was those threads of continuity that I had been longing for. Connections were made between characters and their histories. I got my first hint of the Sentinels, the sequel series to the show that actually was supposed to draw all the characters together. I even, in the case of the First Generation crew, learned about the early days of the show’s narrative – how they all met, etc – from the episodes I had missed.

To this day, I am a continuity junkie, and while the support networks of shows like Doctor Who fed that obsession quite substantially (even before I got anywhere near the internet – novelisations and programme guides, anyone?) it was shows like Robotech that I discovered separate from any support network that I think cemented my obsessive, fact-collecting nature. Yes, Robotech, you broke me.

While I loved the 6 books of the First Generation and was mostly indifferent to the Third (seriously, I’ve just never forgiven them), it was the Southern Cross/Second Generation set of three books that really climbed into my heart. Dana, Angelo and the others became far more fleshed out characters than the show had given me, and I felt that they connected to the original much more completely. (It also didn’t hurt that Jack McKinney agreed with me that Zor was a tool and despite using Dana’s POV most of the time, did not romanticise their frankly weird and unbalanced relationship.

But like with Rick and Lisa, the books messed with my head and with my later viewings of the show. On my recent rewatch, I was surprised at how shallow Dana seemed to be, and how thin a lot of the plots were. I was genuinely shocked at how little screen time most of the relationships got, because I remembered there being so much more.

Then came the last episode – there was Zor, stupidly crashing a ship and creating the apocalypse he had tried to avert because seriously, the story of his life.

There was Dana, getting a mysterious vision of her long-lost sister, and a preciously rare reference to Max and Miriya.

And then…

The episode ended.

Where was my closure? Where was my epilogue with Dana getting her team together and asking them to come to the stars with her? WHERE WAS MY DANA/ANGIE KISS?

Oh, right. Those scenes never happened.

Damn it, show.

I’ve archived a lot of my teen favourite books over the years, putting them into plastic containers because I only have so many bookshelves. The Robotech books are – still shelved, waiting to be reread at a moment’s notice.

My Second Generation omnibus paperback is super creased and battered. I opened it up to discover that yes, the last chapter was an add-on epilogue. Dana’s mysterious vision extended to more information than we got in the show, enough for her to plot a mission to hijack a ship and rejoin her parents – and pretty much everyone was on board with joining her. Only Louis stayed behind, wanting to use his tech knowledge to help the world face the Invid.

Nova was still holding the baby, and making eyes at Dennis Brown (aww Dennis, you are barely in the show but I do love you), the other couples are all together, and everyone’s ready to follow Dana on one more zany, totally-against-military-protocol romp because if working under Supreme Commander Leonard has taught them anything, it’s that regulations are dumb.

Something blocked the low, orange rays of the sunset from her. Angelo Dante stood there, stretching and scratching, having ditched his own armour, wearing a pack made up of most of the usable things he had managed to scare up in the assault ship. The weight of didn’t seem to bother him. He was adjusting his rifle sling.

He didn’t seem to have a care in the world. “Lieutenant – Dana – you’re still callin’ the shots. I got ‘em ready; you move ‘em out.”

Before she knew it, she was on her feet, arms thrown around him. About her had spin the symmetries and vectors of the Second Robotech War; she alone had the powers of mind that would let a leader perform the job she had to do now. But her nineteenth birthday was still three weeks and three days away.

Angelo patted her back and spoke more softly than she had ever heard him. “There, there, now, ma’am: we can’t all be sergeants. But as officers go, I’ve seen worse than you. Dana, all we need is someone to show us the way.”

She knew he didn’t mean the way to Monument; the flames would do that. She surprised herself as much as him by pulling his head down to her and kissing Angelo Dante hard.

Then she let him go, took the sidearm from his belt and stalked off to the front of the disorderly mob while he was still recovering and turning to glower at the ATACs, who had seen what happened but kept discreet silence.

Yeah, I don’t care if they’re cartoon characters, I ship it. Though I find it VERY hard to believe that Sean Phillips was able to manage discreet silence at that point, come on.

Something I’ve never actually done (but always wanted to) is watch the original Macross series in translation – though actually the one I’m more interested in is the Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, AKA Dana’s series. I recently looked up the details to compare it to the Robotech version, and see if there were any other elements I was missing.

FUN FACTS ABOUT SUPER DIMENSION CAVALRY SOUTHERN CROSS:

1. It’s not actually set on Earth, but a human colony called Glorie

2. The triplicate aliens who turn up to wreak havoc are actually the nomadic former natives of the planet, known as the Zor.

3. Something that made me think happy Musketeer Space thoughts (because yes, my Dana D’Artagnan is named after the similarly impulsive but much blonder Dana Sterling) is the common use of French names among the crew: Dana is Jéanne Francaix and was born on the planet Liberté, while Sean is Charles De Etouard, named after the Parisian subway station, and Supreme Commander Leonard is Claude Leon. Also Louis = Louis.

4. Actually the whole ensemble are notably multi-racial Europeans, with Russian, German and English names as well, all written in Katakana. Angelo = Andrzej.

5. Emerson and Bowie are actually father and son, instead of that whole ‘awkward foster father’ situation – it’s an odd change, really. Why couldn’t Emerson have been Bowie’s father and still have Claudia be the aunt? Emerson could have married her sister. I guess then he couldn’t be Bowie Grant but come on, it’s not like they ever utilised that in the plot. Though to be honest I want to know more about all the other foster families who must have been involved in raising all those kids after the competent grown ups all went off into space… and yes, the books do at least explain that Dana lived with Emerson & Bowie, though they do not explain why they treat each other like they’re practically strangers.

6. Another really cute detail that makes my Musketeer Space heart happy is that the personal armour that the ATACs all wear is referred to as an ‘Arming Doublet.’

7. The final episode of the series was called ‘Genesis’ not ‘Catastrophe’ because of course, without the Invid implication, the whole explosion of the Flower of Life is a good rather than bad outcome. I guess Zor (or rather, Seifriet Weiße) is less of a tool in that version of reality? Though according to their TV Tropes page, the ending is pretty inscrutable, possibly because the show was cancelled suddenly.

8. Mary Angel/Marie Crystal is referred to as the Cosmo Amazon. Which I demand to be a cocktail name if it isn’t already! Also she was once the leader of a bikie gang.

9. The descriptions of the show, the credits etc. all make it pretty clear that Jeanne, Mary and Lana (Nova) are intended to be the three main characters, with the boys all playing support roles. I… really want to see this now, because I’ve a had a lingering sense of frustration that I was supposed to know a lot more about Marie Crystal and Nova, but they weren’t set up as protagonists in Robotech. So… have I been falling in love with the wrong story all along? Damn it, Robotech.

Okay. I’ve worked through all my feelings. And I promise to give the Third Robotech War a proper chance, this time, without simply hating it for not telling me what happened to Dana.

This weekly rewatch of classic animated space opera Robotech is brought to you as bonus content for the Musketeer Space project.

Thanks to everyone who has linked, commented, or sponsored me.

You can support Musketeer Space at Patreon.

Friday Links is a Prime Number!

37 is a prime number, right?

It’s my birthday which makes it very easy to remember that a year ago, I launched the Musketeer Space project. Since then I’ve written and published 52 chapters of the novel, posted 15 Musketeer Media Monday essays, and rewatched 60 episodes of Robotech.

It’s not too late to start supporting the project via Patreon if you want ebooks of the finished novel and essays!

Also, I’m going to be eating a lot of cake this weekend, just saying.

The wonderful Katharine, universal Aussie small press intern, is setting up a newsletter for me, so if you want to sign up head here eepurl.com/bnZu0v to receive occasional updates on author news, giveaways etc. for both TansyRR and Livia Day.

Speaking of Livia Day, not only is the ebook version of Drowned Vanilla launching soon, but so is the mini-mystery “The Blackmail Blend,” which is set between the two books. Stay tuned!

Now, it’s been forever since I did this, but check out some Friday links:

The Daily Dot looks at the appeal of a gentle webcomic about college hockey, bros, slooooowburn queer romance and baking, and why it did so well in its crowdfunding. Check! Please is adorable, the end.

The Mary Sue on why they will no longer be promoting Game of Thrones.

Liz Bourke on Fury Road Feminism.

Simon Pegg offers some complicated thoughts on fandom and its appeal.

Musketeer Space Part 52: Five Days of Captivity

Happy Musketeer Day! It’s actually my birthday later this week, which means it’s a year since I started posting chapters of this epic banterfest. I guess the ’52 chapters’ thing gives that away, too. I totally meant to restrict my posting to 4 chapters a month instead of going entirely weekly, but apart from December (when I also posted the 7 part Joyeux novella) I couldn’t bring myself to slack off.

So 52 chapters in a year! Less than ten to go, I THINK – still have five to write and there’s a lot of plot and character to get through in that space. Thanks so much to everyone who has come on this ride with me, as a reader of my spaceships and sword serial – or as a supporter who plans to catch up at an end.

There’s a new Musketeer Media Monday essay up, this one about the first episode in the amazing and fabulawesome (if bonkers) K-Drama series of The Three Musketeers, which combines the original Dumas characters with the backdrop of Joseon dynasty Korean history. The horse acting deserves an Emmy, even Korean D’Artagnan has no hat (a reader had to point this out to me, I am ashamed I didn’t notice for myself) and the romantic entanglements are even more complicated than usual! Check out K-Drama Musketeers Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

If you’re not a Patreon supporter yet but you want the ebook when Musketeer Space winds up, there is still time to hop on board for as little as $1 a month ($2 if you want the essays too). Feed a book, and an author!

(oh and if the sudden focus on the villain’s POV for a couple of chapters is jarring to you, I want you to know that in Dumas’ original, this chapter was actually FIVE, one for each day of captivity. This one is, therefore, a model of restraint…)

Start reading Musketeer Space from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 51

Read a festive Musketeer Space prequel, “Seven Days of Joyeux.”

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE:

Milord Vaniel De Winter, AKA Auden D’Auteville, AKA Slate, AKA Winter, has been captured and imprisoned by his own sister-in-law, who is finally on to his criminal past thanks to a discreet call from the musketeer Athos. This is going to make it much harder – but not impossible – for Milord to assassinate the Duchess of Buckingham. No, the musketeers aren’t in this chapter either. Don’t blame me, blame Dumas.

NOW READ ON!

Chapter 52: Five Days of Captivity

Marshal Felton was a problem.

Milord had been imprisoned many times, and under many circumstances, but he was currently short on allies, and every guard on the island was aware that he had the ability to change his shape and his face.

His room, at the top of the tower, was locked and the once-promising windows had turned out to be sealed.

The glass would not break. Plexi-glass, of course, because even the New Aristocrats of Valour were willing to sacrifice history and traditional grandeur for security and convenience.

No, the only way Milord was getting out of here was with the help of a friend, and the only one with the clearance to make it happen was the flat-eyed, suspicious and thoroughly sulky woman that was in charge of security around here.

How to crack Marshal Felton? She appeared as dry and resistant as the grey rock that had been hewn into this isolated tower, on an island so far north that you could taste ice in the air.

But every soldier had their breaking point. She would crack, sooner or later.

On the first day of captivity, Milord did nothing but sit quietly and respond obediently to every order given. He did not try to scare Marshal Felton, or show her any face other than the one he had so carefully constructed for his identity as Vaniel De Winter, after losing his life as the younger and more cynical Auden d’Auteville.

Milord had won many hearts and opened many doors with this face. There was something about humanity and their susceptibility to a fine pair of cheekbones that he should really report back to his own people, sooner or later.

If cheekbones could be weaponised, conquering humans would be an easy task.

So Milord waited, and seethed, and composed himself outwardly while his inner heart burned with rage. Rage against D’Artagnan, against Olivier – no, Athos, it was Athos the musketeer who had brought him so low this time around. Olivier was as dead as the husband he had ruthlessly executed.

He waited.

Finally, the security web on the door hummed in response to a code, and the door swirled open to reveal the implacable figure of Marshal Felton, holding a food tray.

Milord examined her through his sweeping eyelashes, considering the possibilities. “I really don’t think I can eat,” he whispered.

“No?” Felton banged the tray on the plain table in the corner. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I couldn’t begin to tell you.”

As Felton turned her back to leave the tower room once more, Milord made his move.

He slumped forward, and fell to the floor in a dead faint.

Unconsciousness was almost restful, except that he was angry even in sleep. Milord awoke, struggling through layers of tense, unhappy dreams to hear an argument happening over his head.

“What the hell kind of amateur are you?” demanded the dulcet tones of Vaniel’s sister-in-law. “Pretending to faint is literally the oldest trick in the book. I thought you were smarter than to fall for an actual slapstick routine.”

“He wasn’t pretending,” Felton said hotly. “The meditech confirmed that he was unconscious.”

“I told you no one was to enter this room except you and I, and it took him less than two minutes to compromise your instructions on the first day. What’s next? Am I going to find you braiding him an escape rope with your own hair? No more meditechs. No more unauthorised personnel. I shudder to think what he could have done with medical equipment.”

“There are rules on how to treat prisoners,” Felton replied. “I will not break those rules simply because…”

“He is not human,” Bee hissed. “He is not – he has betrayed everything about our race and our planet. You cannot treat him like some common or garden prisoner.”

“Spy, traitor, alien, whatever he is, we should treat him honourably,” said Felton, crossing her arms.

“Honourable is not the same as stupid,” said Bee. “Stop pretending, Vaniel, I know you’re awake.”

Milord opened his eyes and stretched lazily. He lay on the floor, with what felt like a bruise across the top of his face. He could induce his entire body into a legitimate faint, but to be convincing it had to be real. Hence the bruising. He ran his tongue over his lower lip and felt a soreness there, too. “What did I miss?”

“There will be no more pretending you are ill,” Bee said flatly. “We have been charged to keep you imprisoned until representatives from the Fleet come to collect you. It is the only way that the De Winter family will escape retribution for harbouring an alien spy.”

Milord winced, and rubbed his face. “When you say family, you don’t mean those cousins and hangers-on that you pretend to be polite to at parties, do you? You mean Morgan.”

Bee leaned in as if she were about to punch him. “Do not speak her name,” she snapped, and then stormed out of the cell. “Felton, if you disappoint me again, do not expect further employment by the government of Valour, or anywhere else in the Solar System.”

For the rest of the day, Felton brought every meal on a tray, and Milord said nothing.

But when he finally slept, his carefully-constructed face formed a soft smile.

On the second day of captivity, when Marshal Felton brought in the breakfast tray, Milord saw the star.

It was a tiny thing, tattooed on the inside of the wrist and all but concealed by the sweeping sleeve of the uniform. But it was enough.

The tray contained basic rations, a single glass of juice (only the supper tray included wine) and two Elemental bowls, one filled with earth and one with water.

“The Countess of Clarick insisted you have these,” Felton said quietly. “The prisoner’s charter requires you be provided with the basic tools of worship. I’m afraid she would not trust you with a flame…”

Milord shoved the tray away, so that the Elemental bowls knocked together, and nearly spilled. “She is mocking me,” he snapped. “She knows I do not share her religion.”

And there, a flicker of interest from the Marshal. A hairline crack in her armour. “Indeed? What religion do they follow, on your world?”

“Now you are mocking me, too,” Milord said angrily. “She calls me alien though she has no evidence but the lies of a man who wants to destroy me. I am as human as you are, Marshall Felton, and I follow the stars.”

Felton tilted her head to one side. “You belong to the Church of All?” There was a touch of sympathy in her eyes.

“Just one more thing that woman has taken from me. My wife is dead, and she would keep my daughter for herself. Let me never mention my own religion, or I might contaminate her!”

Felton’s face was unreadable again, but Milord knew, he knew that he had got to her.

“Did you know I have a daughter?” he asked in the gentlest possible tone. “I will never see her again. That is why I am here. Not war, not politics, not aliens. The Countess of Clarick has finally found a way to rid herself of her heir’s last surviving parent. I will never leave this tower alive.”

“You will be guarded and protected in accordance with the law,” said Felton, her chin set stubbornly.

Milord gave her a wistful, melancholy smile, and ate her breakfast. “I am sure you believe that, and I respect you for it.”

When Felton brought Milord lunch, and again when she brought supper, she interrupted the prisoner standing at the plexiglass windows, gazing at the bright blue sky and singing quietly of the cosmonauts who went to the stars, and the Church who kept them safe once they got there.

On the third day of captivity, Milord stayed quiet over breakfast, eyes lowered to the ground. It was a magnificent performance of humble melancholy.

He thought perhaps Felton was going to speak to him, but instead she pressed her mouth tightly closed and took the tray without a word.

It was Bee, and not Felton who brought the lunch tray.

“I heard you’ve switched religions,” she said cheerfully. “Was it your first spouse who put you on to the Church of All or is there some other husband or wife I don’t know about?”

It was tempting to snap back with sarcasm or violence, but Milord could not discount the possibility that Felton and the other guards were not watching the interchange.

“You are subtle in your interrogation methods,” he said calmly. Okay, maybe a small amount of sarcasm was warranted. “Why are you still here? Isn’t there a war to fight? I would have thought charging off to blast lasers at an imagined enemy is exactly your kind of sport.”

Bee gave him a frosty smile. “I have responsibilities here.”

“You know that I was sent on a mission of vital importance to the war effort,” Milord tried. “Her Eminence the Cardinal wished me to encourage the Duchess of Buckingham and New Aristocrats like her – New Aristocrats like you – to bring reinforcements to the battle zone of Truth Space. It’s brave of you to risk the wrath of the most powerful religious leader this Solar System has ever seen.”

Bee laughed at him. “You never stop, do you? I know who you are, Vaniel. And as for the Cardinal, I’m certain she has no more desire to be implicated in your crimes than I. No one is coming to rescue you. No powerful allies or sneaky secret agents are going to set you free. You are completely alone.”

“Ha,” said Milord, and gave her a wan smile. “You never said a truer thing, Bee. There’s no one coming for me, and I have no allies.”

I am alone. That’s what makes me dangerous.

Felton brought the supper tray. Once again she found the prisoner at the window, comforting himself with songs of the stars, and the early spacefarers.

“I can -” she said, and hesitated. “I have permission to bring you tools of worship. A book, perhaps?”

Milord turned his beautiful face up to her. “A knife,” he said bleakly. “If you would really help me, there is a small knife hidden in the hem of the jacket I wore when I was brought here. It has a sacred star pattern on the hilt. The Cardinal herself gave it to me as a gift. Bring me that.”

Felton laid the tray on the table and approached the prisoner as carefully as if she were a wild animal. “And what would you do with that knife, if I gave it to you?”

Milord allowed a tiny puff of a sigh to escape his lips. “I promise you, I will hurt no one but myself.”

That got to her. Felton shivered at the very thought of it. “You can’t think I’m going to let you commit suicide.”

“Why not? It’s what she wants.”

“Your – the Countess of Clarick wants to hand you over to the authorities of the Royal Fleet. Alive. She made that very clear.”

“Ah yes, the Royal Fleet. Not the Combined Fleet, and certainly not the Cardinal’s own. Telling, that.”

Felton’s eyebrows quirked, the first sign of humour in her face. “I have no love of Musketeers but you must know that they serve the Crown’s justice. They will be fair with you.”

“Oh yes,” Milord said hollowly. “Fair indeed. They shall be fair judges, fair juries and fair executioners all rolled into one – or rather, three. Do you know the three I mean?”

“Ha,” said Felton, rolling her eyes. “Yes, I think I have some idea, actually. I took a call from the Musketeer Aramis before I received my official orders to hunt you down. But while they might not be my favourite people, and in private life they barely have the morals of an alley cat between the three of them – I don’t think they would be a threat to an innocent man.”

“It depends on what you mean by innocent,” said Milord, and paused precisely so that Felton would encourage him to speak further. “Do you love the Cardinal, Marshal Felton? I believe you served her once.”

“I did,” said Felton. “And I do love her still. I left Paris for – personal reasons.”

“You know that the Musketeers have an unreasonable hatred for the Cardinal and everything she stands for. That is why I have ended up in this awful situation. The Duchess of Buckingham – you know of her?”

“I might have heard her name once or twice,” Felton said dryly. “She’s famous, you know.”

“She’s a monster. She seduced the Regent’s husband, months ago. And now – I can’t even speak of what she is doing now.” He stood, and stretched his legs. “I should eat, to keep up my strength. They will be here for me, soon enough.”

Felton waited with patience while Milord chewed methodically through the dull, rote-printed rations. Finally, she burst. “Of what do you accuse the Duchess?”

“I accuse nothing. It is not my place.” Milord gave her a wry look over one shoulder, letting his silver hair fall rakishly over one eye. “I am a secret agent, you know. I can’t give away all of my secrets.”

“But if the Cardinal is in danger…”

Marvellous how she had put the story together all on her own, with only a few steering hints from Milord himself. “Oh yes, grave danger. The Duchess of Buckingham has the Musketeers wrapped around her little finger. I don’t think they realise quite the extent of her evil, but their hatred of the Cardinal makes them blind. Buckingham is using them.”

Felton calmed herself down, stepped forward to take the tray. “I can’t – you know I can’t let you out. No matter what you say. You must wait and submit yourself to justice. If what you say is true…”

“There will be no trial,” said Milord, patting his mouth with a napkin. “I will be dead the moment that the Musketeers or their representatives arrive to take me. And by then, it will be far too late to save her Eminence.”

As Felton turned to leave, Milord caught her troubled gaze with his own. “You will never forgive yourself,” he said gently. “If I am right, and Buckingham’s conspiracy succeeds. But God will forgive you.”

On the fourth day of captivity, Felton brought Milord his knife.

“I can’t give it to you,” she said stumbling over her words. “I can’t – the Church of All does not condone suicide, and neither do I. But I thought – it has the sacred constellations engraved upon it, and I thought it might bring you some comfort to see it.”

Milord sat by the window, the model prisoner, hands folded submissively in his hands. “Perhaps I might hold it for a moment?” he asked. “You are a strong woman, I know you would stop me if I sought to do violence to myself. But – you are right. It has always brought me comfort.”

Felton hesitated for only a moment, then handed over the folded knife.

Milord squeezed it tightly to his chest, and traced the star engravings with his finger tips. “You are kinder than I deserve. I would not fear justice at all if you were the judge I were to face.”

“Would you like to pray?” Felton asked.

Milord gave her a sweet, melting smile. “I would be grateful for that.”

They held hands, and they prayed together for some time. When it was over, Milord handed the knife back to his jailer, and went to eat his breakfast.

Felton had not seen the tiny hidden compartment in the knife, nor the silver grain-like beads that Milord had poured secretly into his palm.

Now, at least, he had a plan.

He would not die here, on this rock.

“Shall I come again, to pray with you?” Felton asked.

Milord gazed at her, his face glowing warmly, as if he was the sun. “They’re watching us,” he said. “I worry about you. I think, once I am dead, they will think that I had too much opportunity to influence you. Why else would they let a single official have so much exposure to me, if not to have a scapegoat when I am dead?”

Felton’s face crumpled a little. “They’re not going to kill you,” she said. “We don’t execute prisoners, not on any planet in the Solar System.”

Milord gave him a crooked smile. “Why else do you think Buckingham wants them all to think I am an alien spy? Everyone knows that the only way to kill a “Sun-kissed” is to cut their head from their body.” He turned away, as if the expression on Felton’s face was painful to him. “Don’t pray with me again. I’m sure they’re watching. I don’t want you to suffer for sympathising with me.”

“I’ll come when they’re not watching,” Felton whispered.

Milord smiled at him. “Don’t. I’m not worth it.”

On the fifth day of captivity, the Countess of Clarick brought every meal to her brother-in-law, who refused to answer her questions, or respond to her taunts.

“You have been made a fool, Bee,” was all he said, as she left for the third time. “Buckingham is using us both – and the Musketeers too – for a plot that has nothing to do with this planet, or our family. When it is done, I will be dead and you will be left with blood on your hands and nothing else to show for it.”

“I knew you were poison when she married you,” Bee breathed.

“No,” said Milord, and the smile he gave her was very different to the one had had been using on MarshalFelton. “You didn’t. You always liked me. That’s why you’re so angry now. Don’t let them do this to our family.”

Bee hissed between her teeth, and banged his tray out of the room with her, leaving the wine glass behind.

It was later, nearly midnight, when Felton came.

Milord was ready for her.

You have been reading Musketeer Space, by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Tune in next week for another chapter! Please comment, share and link. Musketeer Space is free to read, but if you’d like to support the project for as little as $1 per month, please visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. Milestones already unlocked include the Musketeer Media Monday posts, the Robotech Rewatch posts, and “Seven Days of Joyeux,” a special Christmas prequel novella which was released in December 2014. My next funding milestone will unlock GORGEOUS COVER ART.

K-Drama Musketeers Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (2014)

I will admit that I know very little about K-drama (Korean soaps?) except that they are apparently awesome and often terrible and possibly an acquired taste.

Many people feel the same way about The Three Musketeers, so I heard there was a K-drama adaptation from 2014 I knew I had to check it out.

Set in the Joseon dynasty during the reign of King Injo (1623-1649), I’m pretty sure the story takes about as many liberties with Korean history as Dumas did with French. Notably, one of our main characters is Crown Prince Sohyeon, who was apparently (possibly) murdered by his father for bringing western innovations to the country including science and Catholicism.

There’s also a narrative framing story about scholars arguing whether or not General Park Dal Hyang (our D’Artagnan) was a real historical person or not – which nicely acknowledges the original novel, where Dumas claims this whole thing is a genuine reflection of the historical shenanigans of the Comte de La Fere and his friends.

But let’s start at the beginning, with D’Artagnan Park Dal Hyang and his horse. His horse is unnamed but you know I’m gonna call her Buttercup.

It is young Dal Hyang’s dream to travel to Hanyang (the Paris of Joseon Korea) to take “the exam,” a test of military skills and fortitude which separates out the best of the best for positions in the King’s army. (There are also administrative exams to earn a place in government but let’s face it, Dal Hyang’s not going to Hanyang to do paperwork)

Dal Hyang puts great stock in his father’s advice, knowing that his dear old Dad is the only man in their distant rural village ever to have travelled to the Big Smoke. He also has failed to notice the angry, sarcastic looks that his mother has been shooting in his father’s direction.

The minute Dal Hyang is on the road, his mother explodes in fury, lambasting her husband for manipulating their son. He’s never been out of the village, it turns out, his advice is all crap (including that quite vital bit of advice about calling on Minister Choi with a letter and inviting himself to stay in his house) and oh yes, that bloody horse is far too old and won’t make the journey.

I am completely in love with Dal Hyang’s mother at this point.

So in true D’Artagnan fashion, our boy’s horse collapses four days into his “month-long” journey, and he has to nurse him back to health, then meets all kinds of other terrible delays along the way. Including tigers.

“I think your horse is smarter than you.” Great quote from a random dude trying to convince Dal Hyang that detouring around a tiger is always a good idea.

[I long for a fanvid or a gif that shows the scene where BBC D’Artagnan lectures the bad guy about how long you can reasonably gallop a horse, and then cuts to Dal Hyang’s horse falling over in a dead faint. Someone get that horse an agent, he’s gonna be a star!]

By the time he gets to the city, of course, it’s taken him twice as long as it should have, and there is no room at Minister Choi’s house or anywhere else because it’s the day before the exam! Our hero then gets mugged by a flashmob and loses most his money.

When he is scammed into paying a small fortune for a room he has to share with a bunch of other blokes, he stumbles into a violent conspiracy – nobles paying violent criminals to beat up men who are “talented” so they won’t do well in the exams. Outraged by this injustice and bleeding from the ear, Dal Hyang goes tearing out in the middle of the night and comes up against three beautifully dressed mysterious strangers on horseback.

OH YEAH BABY.

D’Art at the front, Athos at the top, Porthos on the left, Aramis on the right. The lady is Yoon Seo, a mashup of Constance and Anne of Austria.

The three are not named at this point but thanks to hindsight and Wikipedia I can tell you that yes, their Musketeer archetypes are basically what you would expect. The cheerful round-faced one is Porthos, the serious one is Athos, and the ridiculously baby-faced one who is slender and polite is Aramis.

I’d give you their Korean names, but there’s a thing I don’t want to spoil yet, so we’ll get there.

I did not create this graphic but I am in love with it – if it’s yours, let me know so I can credit!

The Three Strangers are startled by Dal Hyang’s obvious insanity. He pours out his mad story about ruffians and keeps demanding to borrow one of their horses, which causes much bemusement. Especially when he actually has the effrontery to climb up on Ahn Min Seo’s (Aramis) horse behind him to save time and force the issue.

The three strangers are finally convinced by Dal Hyang’s earnest passion for justice, and agree to investigate, bringing our boy along for the ride.

When I say investigate of course what I mean is: fight scene.

It’s all resolved rather quickly and Dal Hyang is still no wiser about who his new heroes are, though they’re obviously some kind of authority in this town. As they prepare to ride off into the darkness he asks their names and is only told that they are called “The Three Musketeers.”

As the three ride away, we learn that they don’t call themselves this at all – one of them just came up with the name on the spur of the moment. They love it though so they’re keeping it.

WHO ARE THESE BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS?

Turns out they are rather important people, in a slight (ha!) change from the usual canon. The “Musketeers” head to some kind of fancy paper hotel with some of the most bored dancing girls you can imagine. “Athos” has a private war meeting with some fellows while his two friends exclaim over a highly suspicious letter belonging to Dal Hyang that they found on Ahn Min Seo’s horse.

Dal Hyang, meanwhile, wonders what Musketeers are, and why they travel in threes.

“Hanyang is big I guess. All the talented people hang out together.”

When he returns to his own dodgy bloodstained boarding house, Dal Hyang finds his letter from his father still there, but the other one is missing. What other one? Why is there another letter?? What’s going on??

Turns out the letter is of the love variety and possibly of the treasonous conspiracy variety. Ahn Min Seo and Heo Seung Po show the letter to “Athos”, and he shares their concern. There’s more to young Dal Hyang than meets the eye.

Speaking of more than meets the eye, there’s definitely a different power dynamic going on here than is usual for the Three Musketeers.

Dal Hyang receives a rude message on an arrow, telling him to come meet his three new friends again if he wants his letter back. Outraged to have had his privacy violated, he tears off only to find himself in a paper office with a very grave, serious “Athos.”

Who keeps giving him polite orders like he expects him to obey him. That’s a bit odd, right?

This show is like 50% dirty looks and meaningful exchanges of glances. Which may or may not be out and out eye-fucking. Dal Hyang is apparently unable to read body language, and so is confused for much of this scene and utterly shocked when “Athos” reveals that he has read the private letter and now plans to interrogate him about it.

Yoon Seo, daughter of General Kang, once stayed in Dal Hyang’s village five years ago, and the two of them were in love. We learn this through the occasional flashback to them prancing on a beach, Danny-and-Sandy-style (Summer Lovin’ Happened So Fast!) and through the letter itself, in which the cheerful, teasing girl encourages Dal Hyang’s suit of her.

Our boy has spent the last five years training endlessly all so he can fulfil his dream to come to Hanyang, take the exam, and then find Yoon Seo to marry her. He has no idea why this mean Musketeer keeps insisting that his precious love letter might be evidence of a conspiracy… until “Athos” breaks it to him that Yoon Seo is already married. To the Crown Prince Sohyeon. So… yeah. Out of luck, dude. Also, that letter starts looking like a pretty dangerous piece of evidence of treason.

Dal Hyang is devastated. There are actual tears rolling down his face, as the emotion overwhelms him. “Athos” questions him further, obviously still concerned with the political ramifications of this – how could anyone not know who the Crown Princess was?

The answer, of course, is that he lives so far away. It took him TWO MONTHS to get here. Also, he’s really emotional right now, so can you please stop accusing him of conspiracy?

Ahn Min Seo and Heo Seung Po have been waiting outside, and are shocked when “Athos” emerges and declares the lad innocent. He’s a little shell shocked at having caused so much pain to this young lad he hardly knows. Oh, the feels.

“I know I should torture him but instead I think I’ll buy him a drink to console him,” the Musketeer decides.

But what about Yoon Seo herself? She is in the Palace, readying herself for bed, when her husband unexpectedly calls on her. Sadly, this is not a booty call.

Because of course, GUESS WHO HER HUSBAND IS?

Yes, our “Athos” is in fact Crown Prince Sohyeon. Yoon Seo is his wife, though I’m not sure if they have an especially warm relationship given that she’s not used to him visiting her at bedtime.

Sohyeon is actually here to troll his wife. Amused by Yoon Seo’s past as a beach bunny with a taste for pretty peasant boys, he teases her with a straight face.

She freaks the fuck out when he tells her what he knows about Dal Hyang and the letter that she wrote him, but Sohyeon isn’t exactly jealous so much as curious.

He also seems to be a lot more defensive of Dal Hyang’s feelings than those of his wife which is hardly a shocker considering that canon Athos is a complete misogynist: not a fan of the ladies. He is far more upset that this talented young man is now heartbroken and probably not going to do well in the exam than he is that his wife’s reputation is hanging by a thread.

There’s an element of wistfulness here too, when Sohyeon asks “where did that bold girl go?” He doesn’t recognise his timid, polite wife as being the same woman who wrote that letter to Dal Hyang, and regrets perhaps that she has been so intimidated by him that he will never get to know her like that.

Meanwhile Yoon Seo gets to try out a whole bunch of ‘gobsmacked’ expressions including one where her mouth literally hangs open in horror.

Dal Hyang is indeed planning to give up on the exam and go home – he has nothing to fight for now, and mopes to his surprisingly understanding horse about how Yoon Seo is lost to him forever, living over in the Palace.

The Three Musketeers have other ideas. Dal Hyang still doesn’t know the identity of any of them, but he does know they represent some sort of authority. So they go and blackmail him into doing his best in the exam. Sohyeon makes it clear that he’s holding on to the letter for the time being, while Ahn Min Seo and Heo Seung Po entertain themselves by slandering their Crown Prince: terrifying young Dal Hyang with how violent and sly he can be.

Sohyeon grumbles at them about this, but they get away with it. Boys, you are evil, but your plan is not without merit.

Dal Hyang competes with all the other men, and mostly gets first (in one case second) place in the various events, including archery, spear, iron archery, archery on horse, and so on.

He is delighted to be one of the 28 finalists selected to perform in front of the King himself. King Injo makes himself comfortable and picks archery on horse as the event he’s going to judge.

Which would all be fine, except that Sohyeon turns up too, to see the show, just as Dal Hyang is about to go on.

Meaningful looks ahoy. Dal Hyang is mortified as the Crown Prince gazes at him from across the field. Note: it’s a really bad idea to freak out someone who is about to do some shooting from horseback.

I assumed at this point that Dal Hyang would acquit himself, get top marks, and earn a place in the King’s military – but I forgot for a moment that the whole point of the beginning of D’Artagnan’s journey is that he does a metaphorical face plant as soon as he arrives in Paris.

So, yes. Dal Hyang is so distracted by the burning bedroom eyes of Sohyeon (I’m sorry, but the meaningful looks have definitely gone beyond bromance at this point, I’m not wrong, am I?) that he stumbles on the horse, shoots badly, the arrow goes into the rump of another horse, and causes a stampede of epic dramatic proportions that terrifies everyone, including the king. Well, especially the king.

If Dal Hyang gets out of this without being executed, it will be a miracle. This is why you don’t use your power and prestige to fuck with the heads of impressionable young men, Musketeers!

The horse acting in this show is seriously amazing, though. They are obviously trying to one-up each other in competition for the Horse Emmy.

The episode ends with Sohyeon bursting into laughter because it is really, really funny. Dal Hyang, however, is frozen in horror at what he has done…

And that is how they met. And there are like 12 episodes still to go. This is GOLD, Musketeer fans. Get your own copy now. Though I warn you, I ordered mine on ebay and ended up with a dodgy pirate version. Still, it has English subtitles, which is more than you can say for the DVD of the Russian Musketeer extravaganza which is still my favourite and my best…

“The Three Musketeers” is a 2014 Korean drama starring Jung Yong-hwa, Lee Jin-wook, Yang Dong-geun, Jung Hae-in, and Seo Hyun-jin. Loosely based on Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Three Musketeers, the series follows three Joseon-era adventurers who serve Crown Prince Sohyeon as his warrior guards. It’s basically awesome. There are twelve episodes, and while I don’t have time to review them all for my Musketeer Media Monday essays, I do plan to watch them all at some point if only to find out how they fold Richelieu, Rochefort and especially Milady into the tale. There may be live-tweeting. I promise nothing.

This Musketeer Media Monday post was brought to you by the paid sponsors of Musketeer Space, all 70+ of them. You guys rule! Previous posts in this series include:

Musketeers in an Exciting Adventure With Airships (2011)

Musketeers Are All For Love (1993)

Looks Good in Leather: BBC Musketeer Edition Part I (2014)

You Can Leave Your Hat On: BBC Musketeer Edition Part II (2014)

It’s Raining Musketeers: BBC Musketeer Edition Part III (2014)

Mickey Mouse the Musketeer (2004)

Musketeers Crack Me Up Seventies Style (1973)

Musketeer in Pink (2009)

Musketeers Break My Heart Seventies Style (1974)

Musketeers in Technicolor (1948)

Musketeer on Mars (2008, 2012)

Bat’Magnan and the Mean Musketeers (2001)

Russian Musketeers Own My Soul (1979)

All the Musketeer Ladies (2015)

Robotech Rewatch 50: Damn it, Zor

Attention, Micronians! Robotech is back.

Episode 59:

The Invid Connection

It’s a bad season for hay fever, with the Invid Flower of Life exploding pollen kisses all over the cave.

Nova can’t reason with Bowie, and Dana attacks her on the grounds that this is a love story she is interfering with here, just because of stupid old intergalactic military security.

Bowie uses the low blow of questioning Nova’s friendship.

Zor makes the bizarre revelation that Musica’s job was actually placating the clones with her music, and with her taken out of the flagship, the clone communities will be running rampant and causing all manner of chaos. That’s… actually slightly helpful?

Nova decides to be a good friend instead of competent at her job. Why are any of these people in the military?

Speaking of the military, General Emerson is about to head into the battle of his life, but Supreme Commander Leonard decides this is awesome timing to tell him about Bowie going AWOL.

The fighting starts, with great damage being done to the human cities. The Robotech Masters get in touch to point out that they can destroy them with one hand tied behind their backs. They give Leonard and Earth Forces 36 hours to evacuate the planet.

The Robotech Masters send a ship down to fetch the protoculture and preserve the Flowers of Life. Zor faces them down, sending them away.

Dana and Nova start realising that they are merely supporting characters in the Epic Adventure of Zor. They are not especially pleased about this.

Musica and Bowie, meanwhile, are wrapped up in their own little tragic romance bubble, which is threatened when the Robotech Masters demand to have Musica back in exchange for human captives – which include General Emerson, Marie Crystal and Dennis Brown.

The 15th, fully armoured and back in their hovertanks, lead a delegation back into space for the hostage exchange. They are reunited with their friends, but Musica’s creepy non-fiance snatches her. The rest of the ATAC smash their way in for a rescue, including Sean (who cheerily refers to Marie as his little pigeon).

Emerson is shot and dies slowly in Bowie’s arms, begging him and his friends to learn from the mistakes his own generation made – two races must live in harmony! (Dude, where were you, that was the lesson the previous generation were supposed to learn)

Episode 60: Catastrophe

Angelo Dante is having a crap day. They manage to escape the flagship of the Robotech Masters, but Zor has been left behind and Dana goes to rescue him.

To Angie’s complete and total dismay, everyone else starts chiming in with their own reasons for going back, up to and including Nova and Dennis Brown. Damn it all.

Angie lets himself get talked into the rescue mission.

Meanwhile, Zor doesn’t give a damn about any of them, but is off on his own mission of revenge.

“I shall not stop until I destroy this society or it destroys me.”

Yep, that’s about all you need to know about Zor.

Dana saves his life and he tries politely to leave her behind. She won’t take any of his self-sacrifice bullshit!

Angelo and his own motley rescue crew find the ship weirdly empty – and when they look out the window, it’s obvious where they all went. The clones have mostly been ditched into space, floating and abandoned.

A small group of clones are hiding in the bottom of the ship, with Musica’s sisters who are trying to convince them all that maybe there’s more to life than having someone play a Cosmic Harp at you.

The Robotech Masters have zeroed in on the Robotech Matrix, which might be pumping out Flower of Life pollen like nothing else, but is still the key to saving and renewing their society.

Zor turns up to judge them so hard.

Dana, tagging along, receives a whole bunch of exposition including that Zor himself created the Zentraedi people (along with the Robotech Masters themselves). Zor shoots at them and their last jar of protoculture, which blossom and release their flowers.

She goes into a deep vision quest, apparently because of her alien heritage. She is faced by a trinity of selves and rejects them thoroughly, refusing to accept that she has anything in common with the Robotech Masters and their pet clones.

In her dream, she is confronted by a beautiful little blue-haired girl who claims to be her sister, the other daughter of Max and Miriya Sterling.

Pretty clearly, the dream is warning Dana about the spores, and to beware the Invid. The Invid like the spores. Got it? Wouldn’t want you to miss that detail.

Spores.

Musica is happily reunited with her own sisters, and rescues those of the clones who survived. Nova ends up carrying a baby. I don’t know where the baby even came from. Don’t they create the clones as adults?

Leonard continues on his mission to blow up all the things, while the Bioroids attack and destroy most of Monument City. His grasp of military tactics remains second to none, and he refuses to evacuate because he’s enjoying himself way too much.

Lisa, this is what happens when you take all the competent military personnel on a space quest and leave the dregs back on Earth.

Musica and her not-fiance have an angry domestic about the concept of free will while he and his triplets shoot a lot at Bowie and Angelo’s fighting force.

Sean turns up as the cavalry again, after Angie failed to meet him for “their date” at the rendezvous. As they all make their retreat, Octavia is shot and Musica is devastated to lose one of her sisters.

The elderly uncle Robotech Masters move in to collect the pollen and the protoculture from the cave under the earth with their earth-splitting machine. Dana is determined to stop them, but then realises that the ship they are on is on a collision course with what’s left of Monument City. She wants to force the Masters to tell them how to steer the ship clear, but Zor shoots them instead.

He then kisses Dana and puts her in an escape capsule, only to ride the ship down into the Master-made protoculture gully. His mighty act of self sacrifice is intended to destroy the remaining protoculture once and for all, and to save the Earth.

But because he’s kind of a tool who never listens to anyone, instead he manages to release all of the spores into the atmosphere.

WHOOPS.

The Earth will now become a fertile garden, awaiting the invasion of the Invid.

Damn it, Zor.

This weekly rewatch of classic animated space opera Robotech is brought to you as bonus content for the Musketeer Space project.

Thanks to everyone who has linked, commented, or sponsored me.

You can support Musketeer Space at Patreon.

Musketeer Space Part 51: The Comte De La Fere is a Ghost Story

It’s Musketeer Day again!

Winter has closed in around Hobart, with rain and snow looming down over us. And yes, it’s still May. At least the cold front came in (for once) early enough for new winter coats to be bought before they disappear from the shops.

I bought two! Now I just need to get ugg boots for the children.

The wintry weather is very appropriate for the part of Musketeer Space I’m writing at the moment, because of the ice and wind and snow of the Castellion chapters. It’s all very symbolic.

Start reading Musketeer Space from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 50

Read a festive Musketeer Space prequel, “Seven Days of Joyeux.”

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE:

Milord Vaniel De Winter, AKA Auden D’Auteville, AKA Slate, AKA Winter, has been hired by Cardinal Richelieu to either convince the Duchess of Buckingham to lead an armada of Valour ships to support the war against the Sun-kissed, or to assassinate the Duchess so they can use her death as a political rallying cry. What the Cardinal doesn’t know is that Milord is himself a Sun-kissed agent… unfortunately for Milord, the Musketeers have been making some very effective interstellar comms calls in their attempt to thwart him.

NOW READ ON!

CHAPTER 51: The Comte De La Fere Is A Ghost Story



The De Winter family skimmer was a masterwork of comfort and elegance in design. Milord had always been rather fond of it.

Bee sat in the driver’s seat with her boots up on the dash, calmly waiting him out.

“Where are we going?” he asked her, choosing not to address the implied knowledge and accusation in her voice.

There were at least sixteen methods he could use to kill her, right this minute. It would be a shame – Bianca De Winter had been a worthy ally, and her loyalty to family had always provided him with a certain layer of protection in the cutthroat world of Valour New Aristocracy.

Milord had always known that it would be temporary. Olivier, you taught me that lesson. The second I disappointed you, my life was forfeit.

They were a ruthless race, these New Aristocrats of Valour. Only three or four generations ago, their ancestors had set foot on a barren rock and turned their machines against it until it transformed into a land of storybook beauty, worthy of their distant myths and legends.

If Milord had learned one thing from the university courses he took while attempting to snare a high-ranking spouse, it was that humans were stupid in the face of beauty. Having conquered this planet and made it perfect, the New Aristocrats thought themselves above everyone else.

Oh they had their religion, but was it a surprise that so many of them preferred Elementalism to the more forward-looking and inclusive Church of All? By worshipping the earth and the trees and the very air, they worshipped themselves all over again. Who was it who had made the earth rich and fertile on this planet? Who was it who had shaped the rivers and the mountains and altered the air so it tasted sweet in human lungs?

The fucking New Aristocrats, that was who. Their religion, like everything else, was all about them.

The De Winter family were as bloated and self-congratulatory as the d’Autevilles had been. But Milord had learned from his mistakes with the Comte De La Fere. By the time he presented himself on a platter to Delia De Winter and her arrogant, brash older sister, he had shaped a history that allowed him to play Someone of Note, rather than an outsider craving acceptance.

And yes, he loved his title. How could he not? As the husband of the Comte de la Fere he had been merely The Honourable Auden d’Auteville, a name that made it clear he was of lesser status to everyone else in the backwater noble family he had chosen to infiltrate.

When he came to marry Milady Delia De Winter, younger sister of the Countess of Clarick, he had expected much of the same. But Bee was generous, and greatly pleased with the money and political influence that ‘Vaniel Greywater’ brought to the marriage. She allowed him to share Delia’s title, and somehow…

Somehow, as Milord, he had become someone new. Perhaps these ridiculous New Aristocrats knew what they were doing after all. He knew the title was meaningless, that he had done little more than bought it outright… and yet.

He was a different man when he wore it. There was a confidence to him that had only arrived when he became Milord, distancing himself from the last ragged remnants of the identity that had nearly destroyed him.

Bee was waiting for him to speak, her boots twitching impatiently. She had not answered his question. Did she realise that he was considering the potential risks of killing her right here, in the skimmer? Had she password-locked the auto pilot? It would not do to arrive, blood-stained and breathless, at the De Winter estate in the county of Clarick with the recently-murdered corpse of his sister-in-law.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I know about you?” There was a thread of tension in her voice, and yet Bee made herself pretend her usual careless amusement, as a rather jolly development in their relationship.

“I have already asked you a question and received no answer,” Milord replied, matching her light tone. “Goodness, darling, what have those surly Musketeers been telling you?”

Bee leaned in, and Milord’s gaze swept over the pulse at her throat, the one that he could pinch out so easily. She had no idea how strong he was, how much more than a human she had trapped here in the metal skin of this skimmer.

Or perhaps she did know, after all.

“One Musketeer in particular,” said Bee, tipping her head back against the soft leather of the pilot seat. “His name is Athos. You’re acquainted, I suppose?”

He chose his words carefully, not allowing the anger at that ridiculous nickname to show in his face or the smooth gestures of his hands. “I hardly think you would believe me if I said I was not acquainted with the fellow. Though in truth, we met for the first time some days ago.”

Bee’s face hardened. “Really, Vaniel? Is that the truth? I got the impression you had known each other long ago. Or is it a lie that you were once married to the Comte De La Fere, under another name?”

Milord huffed out a laugh. “The Comte De La Fere? Now I know someone has been telling you fairy tales. The Comte De La Fere is a ghost story.”

“Indeed.” But Bee looked so very unimpressed. How on earth had Olivier got under her skin so quickly, turned her fierce trust into suspicion? “I’d never even heard of the estate, but I’ve had time to research it while waiting for you to show up. It’s found in the peak district of far north Castellion – a long way from any civilised society. Far enough north that they use the old language – comtes and comtesses, ducs and duchesses. As it turns out, there was a Comte of those lands some years ago, and he had a husband.”

Milord had never wasted a thought on what happened to the estate after he left. He had known – had seen somewhere – that Olivier d’Auteville had disappeared after the execution of his husband, and eventually been declared dead. Perhaps one of the hangers on that orbited the family had taken the lands for themselves. Or perhaps they stood empty still.

He had been happy there once, for a time, though when he thought of it he remembered the chilly grey winters and not the fresh green warmth of the summers.

“Have you been listening to gossip from a dead man?” he asked Bee now.

Her mouth broke into a broad, cold smile. “He had such an interesting story to tell.”

Milord looked away from her, his eyes going to the viewscreen that was full of blue, bright blue, and utterly familiar. “We’re skimming over water.”

“Yes,” said Bee. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, brother dear. But we’re not going to Clarick.”

His gaze snapped back to her, calculating. “Then I’m the one who’s sorry. But I don’t think we have anything left to talk about.”

Milord moved, and Bee twisted away from him. He had a blade in his hand by the time her boots smacked down on to the floor, but she did too. His was a killing knife, the kind that concealed so easily in a sleeve, though the SmartMetal allowed it to bend and warp to whatever length or width was most useful.

Bee, however, had a sword. She must have been keeping it down beside her seat, but the hilt was in her hand now, and the tip directly pointing at Milord’s throat.

Her weapon had the reach on him, but she was a sportswoman and not a killer. He took a step, intending to let her impale him. A thin blade sucking through the middle of his throat would nicely take the sword out of play and do little to slow him down as he slit her throat and let her bleed out on the floor of the luxury skimmer.

One step was all it took, and a hard snap locked around his ankles, forcing him still. Cuffs. The chair had cuffed him in place – some sort of automatic system? He growled, flexing against the hard metal that restrained him.

Bee De Winter, the Countess of Clarick, lowered her sword. “I was never as stupid as you thought I was,” she told him.

Milord snarled at her, no longer having to pretend anything. “Isn’t that inconvenient.”

Finisterra. This was Finisterra. Milord knew it from the moment he was led – cuffed at the ankle and the wrist – from the skimmer an on to the hard grey rock of the island.

Delia had only brought him here once. She hated the place as much as any member of her family did. Finisterra was where New Aristocrats went to remind themselves how good things were. It was one of the few patches of Valour which had never been successfully terraformed – oh, the air was breathable enough, and the bitter blue ocean was as teeming with life as any other body of saltwater on this over-designed planet.

But nothing grew on Finisterra. Nothing but stone. The De Winter family had sold stone blocks hewn from this grim island for generations, to build castles all across Castellion, though the New Aristocracy preferred butter yellow sandstone from the eastern quarries than the pale blue-grey rock of the islands. Eventually the quarry was closed down.

There was a tower here, built high and sure above the island, with a clear view across the ocean to mountains that must, it occurred to Milord, themselves overlook the land he had first infiltrated when he arrived on Valour.

This was a northern island, so he was closer to the De La Fere estate than he had been since his execution. Ironic, that he might well meet a second execution here. Full circle, one might say.

Good luck with that, Bee, he thought silently as he trudged the path from the skimmer to the grim tower that awaited him. His ankles were weighed down by magnetic cuffs similar to the ones that had pinned him to the chair. His sister-in-law held an arc-ray on him as she followed. Taking my head won’t be enough. I wonder if you have any idea how difficult I will be to kill.

There was a harsh familiarity to the tower as Milord made his weary way inside, as a prisoner. The De Winters loved their grey stone. Bee and Delia’s grandfather had built a similar tower on an unnamed asteroid after winning the title in a gambling debt. The asteroid had been one of many random properties assigned to Milord’s care after the death of his wife, and he had made use of it only recently, to house the kidnapped Conrad Su.

This tower, the Finisterra tower, was somehow colder and less welcoming than the asteroid tower had been.

“I haven’t been here since I was a child,” Bee remarked as they entered the arched gate to be greeted by a flat-faced unit of guards, all wearing the De Winter crest. “I do hope there are dungeons.”

“You are making a mistake,” Milord said, keeping his voice soft and unthreatening.

Bee leaned in to him, making sure to keep at an arm’s length. Even with his wrists heavy in cuffs that matched the weights on his ankles, she did not trust him. And so she should not. “Am I really? Was that someone else’s hand wielding a knife in my face a few hours ago?”

“I feared for my life.”

“From me?”

“You have obviously been bewitched by the words of a madman.”

Bee smiled at that. “Mad is he, your Musketeer? I thought he was a ghost story.”

“Bee, for the sake of our family…”

She actually hissed in her throat. “Family. You dare say that to me? I have trusted you as a brother and a friend, and this – what you have done to my family is indescribable.”

“It’s the dishonour that burns, is it?” he shot at her. “How embarrassing for you, to have Musketeers spreading ridiculous tales about your kin.”

Bee looked as if she had been slapped. “You think I brought you here because you are an embarrassment to me? Darling boy. I brought you here because I want answers.”

Milord wriggled his fingers, flexing his wrists against the cuffs. He could get out of them now, if he changed shape, but he would lose any pretence of innocence, and he did not yet know the lie of the land. If he could be sure these six men and women in livery were the only guards on the island, he might be prepared to risk it. But he had not got as far as he had without patience, and caution.

“I am an open book,” he said to his sister-in-law, projecting an aura of harmlessness. “What do you need to know, sweetness?”

“For a start,” said Bee. “Did you murder my sister Delia?”

Oh, that.

Well.

That was a long story, and not one that was going to endear him to Bee tonight.

Better to say nothing.

Milord was taken, not to a dungeon, but to a room high in the tower. Suitably melodramatic. He was almost impressed at the lengths to which Bee was willing to go to play the part of ruthless jailer to the hilt.

There were twelve guards, not six, and they were presided over by a resentful woman in the emerald-and-gold sash of a Valour Marshal.

“Aren’t you a little overqualified for guard duty?” Milord asked the Marshal, calculating the size and shape of the room, the electronic seals on every window, and the active security system that would monitor him every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

“Marshal Felton is here at the First Minister’s request,” said Bee, as she checked the accommodations. “I’ve been busy during your voyage from the battle zone, brother dear. Her eminence Cardinal Richelieu was especially informative about your past activities.”

Milord raised an eyebrow. “I bet she was.”

“The government of Valour took it as a personal favour for me to discreetly remove you from the public, to minimise the scandal,” Bee went on. “I might get a knighthood for it.”

“Betrayal is a lucrative business these days.”

Her face frosted over. “Don’t you dare, Vaniel. You wormed your way into my family, married my sister – who died so conveniently soon after the wedding, and from such a brief illness. I never even doubted you for a second. All this time.”

“Bee,” he said, still hoping he could convince her to take his word over that of his ridiculous former husband. “Be reasonable.”

Olivier, you will die for this, and I will make you watch me dismember the girl D’Artagnan before I finally let you fall into you own oblivion.

“Reasonable?” Bee hissed. “This isn’t a minor skeleton in the closet to be tidied away. My sister is dead, and my only heir was apparently fathered by an alien. I’m not in the mood to be reasonable, Vaniel. I’m done with you. If you have any confessions, give them to Marshal Felton, and we’ll see if anything you say is worth trading for a swift and private execution, instead of the publicly humiliating spectacle that the Valour government is preparing for as we speak.”

She stormed out of the room, leaving only Marshal Felton behind.

Milord took a deep breath, and gave her a charming smile. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. Family tiffs can be so awkward. Any chance of a hot cup of tea?”

You have been reading Musketeer Space, by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Tune in next week for another chapter! Please comment, share and link. Musketeer Space is free to read, but if you’d like to support the project for as little as $1 per month, please visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. Milestones already unlocked include the Musketeer Media Monday posts, the Robotech Rewatch posts, and “Seven Days of Joyeux,” a special Christmas prequel novella which was released in December 2014. My next funding milestone will unlock GORGEOUS COVER ART.

Robotech Rewatch 49: Weepfleeing Justice

At ease, troopers, Robotech is back.

Episode 57: Day Dreamer



Supreme Commander Leonard throws a strop about Emerson calling a withdrawal after merely damaging one of the enemy ships.

The 15th, meanwhile, are worried about what the Global Military Police (with their weirdly broad remit) are going to do to Musica given their dubious history with prisoners of war. They decide to keep her out of their hands.

Nova arrives to greet the 15th Squadron back on base and starts asking the difficult questions, like who is that mysteriously armoured trooper they are trying to sneak off the ship on a stretcher?

It turns out to be a grinning Sean inside the armour, insisting that he has shrapnel in his big toe, and Nova is so flustered and confused by his nonsense that she fails to notice Musica in plain sight, as one of the stretcher bearers.

Given that Dana is the only woman in the 15th, it’s highly ridiculous that they get away with this!

Ah but Nova is smarter than they think she is – she checks up on the name she heard them use for Musica, only to learn that the soldier in question died in the first wave. So what is Dana hiding?

Dana, obviously starved for female company, wastes no time in giving Musica a human makeover, dressing her up in her own clothes.

Turns out Octavia and Allegra, Musica’s abandoned sisters, weren’t blown up after all – Zor’s explosion from last week punched a whole in the ship but didn’t actually destroy it – and they are being treated as objects of suspicion. Octavia finds the whole thing very frustrating and blames Musica for this, while Allegra tries to smooth over her hurt feelings.

The Sgt Pepper Robotech Masters and their elderly uncles discuss the impending doom clock that is upon them. The lost protoculture matrix (which they are still no closer to finding) is going to sprout the Flower of Life any day now, and that will bring the Invid down upon the Earth. The Robotech Masters plan to be long gone when that happens!

Zor has been given a clean bill of health, and so Dana throws a party at one of Bowie’s skeevy piano-playing clubs.

Nova crashes the party to the lilting tune of a Minmei song, and smiles suspiciously at Musica. Dana covers for her by claiming she is Bowie’s new ukelele playing pal.

Musica does not think Bowie’s earnest piano playing holds a candle to what she and her sisters could do, and starts weeping at the table. Zor charmingly informs her that they are both equally undeserving of being forgiven by those who trust them. This does not make her feel better.

“Just bloodhound Nova on the trail of enemy agents.”

Sean sums it up beautifully.

Angelo and Zor get into a fight because Zor is being emotionally insensitive (yes, really) and complaining about having to shoot things. Angie punches him and calls him an ungrateful little skunk, which is not untrue.

Dana thinks that Zor is acting out because of his guilt and becomes his next emotional punching bag, which riles Angie up even more.

Bowie tries to head off a miserable Musica’s natural tendency to weepflee by wearing his heart on his sleeve, and comforts her with the promise that the war will eventually end.

Meanwhile, Zor calls Nova and reports Musica as an enemy agent, because he is a complete and total dick.

As Musica sings an operatic backing track of her pain and loss, Nova prepares for the arrest. Dana eavesdrops some plot-relevant lyrics in the song and asks Musica about the Flower of Life, which sounds a lot like the mysterious flower she and Bowie found that one time.

Louis gives Dana a warning about Nova’s arrival, and Dana goes down to play for time – first acting innocent, then lecturing Nova about her behaviour. Furious at Zor for his betrayal, she leads Nova to Bowie’s room… but of course, it’s too late, and the lovebirds have flown the coop.

Now they’re on the run from the law, and Musica is only wearing ballet flats.

Episode 58: Final Nightmare

Dana gives Zor a serve for betraying Musica, and Nova threatens to arrest everyone. It’s just another night in the 15th’s private break room.

It’s pouring down as Bowie and Musica struggle across the terrain – she’s about to give up when Bowie spots the chance to steal a hoverbike. He gets at least 3 seconds of being cool before he crashes it, which is not helpful to Musica’s morale.

The search party for Bowie and Musica is the 15th ATAC, which – okay. Most of their friends are deeply unenthused about hunting them down, but orders and orders (and Dana, as ever, has her own plans as to how she plans to follow those orders).

Zor is left firmly at home in the doghouse, while Nova (instead of setting up her own search party which would actually seem to be a Military Police responsibility) spies on Dana’s crew from behind a rock.

The Robotech Masters have seen the writing on the wall: this series is nearly over, and their relevance is waning. Time to just full on assault the planet and hope for the best – no more of this tiptoeing around to avoid destroying the protoculture matrix.

Supreme Commander Leonard has the same idea, meanwhile, only without all those parts about the Invid and the protoculture matrix. He just wants to shoot people.

Marie Crystal and Dennis Brown are called into General Emerson’s office so he can break it to them that they are going into a final assault against the enemy, and none of them are expected to come out of this one alive. Crystal and Brown aren’t bothered, because they know how awesome they are.

Bowie takes Musica to the closest thing he has to a romantic hideaway – the secret cave where he and Dana saw all those pink flowers that time.

Musica is shocked to recognise that these are the Flowers of Life – and their spores are rising! They watch the eerie process of golden pollen exploding into the air and soaring up into the atmosphere. As she weeps over the tragic effect this is going to have on the planet, Bowie realises that they must have also inadvertently found the lost protoculture factory, that very thing the whole war has been about. The flowers are feeding on the protoculture and sending up a signal to drawn the Invid to their world.

Dana’s search party arrives hot on their heels, and inhale a whole bunch of the magic disco pollen. No way that can go wrong. They find Bowie and Musica in the middle of a cavern of light, flowers and a strangely compelling melody. Bowie shares his theory.

Nova is the next to arrive, having been tracking them all along. Zor, who was following her, turns up and they head into the cave together.

Nova tries to arrest Bowie and Musica and Dana tries to stop her – but Zor, as usual, makes it all about him. He starts shouting his memories of his former life as a scientist. He assumes that the Masters resurrected him to find out his secrets and science knowledge.

No one really cares about what Zor has to say right now.

This weekly rewatch of classic animated space opera Robotech is brought to you as bonus content for the Musketeer Space project.

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Musketeer Space Part 50: Sunrise at the Siege of Truth

It’s Musketeer Day!

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Start reading Musketeer Space from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 49

Read a festive Musketeer Space prequel, “Seven Days of Joyeux.”

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana D’Artagnan became a Musketeer the long way around. She also accidentally had sex with an alien spy who used to be married to one of her best friends. Well, not entirely accidentally. It’s not like she tripped and fell on him. Anyway. There’s a war now, between the humans and the Sun-kissed, which makes things super awkward. Also, they’ve been forbidden to fly off to Valour to prevent an assassination, because intergalactic diplomacy. Even cake didn’t help.

NOW READ ON!

Chapter 50: Sunrise at the Siege of Truth

Athos was wrecked after his private call to his former (current?) dead husband’s sister-in-law. Dana felt equally wrecked after the unexpected conversation with Conrad, closely followed by the emotional tennis match that was her call to Mama.

Every silence between their words was heavy with her Papa and how much the whole family missed him, and how Dana hadn’t been there, not only for the disaster on Gascon Station and the medical fallout that came after, but especially the hard work that was going on right now, to restore the station and save the community from disintegration.

They all seemed so far away, even though being in Truth Space meant she was technically closer than she had been since she first left home. But there were whole hours, entire days, when Dana’s chaotic life had distracted her so sufficiently that she forgot that her Papa was dead and her childhood home in ruins.

Because of them. The Sun-kissed. It always came back tothem.

Even with the good news to share about her promotion (your Papa would be so proud, your Papa always believed you would make it) to the rank and status of ‘proper Musketeer,’ Dana could not help but feel a stab of guilt as if her Mama knew from their stilted, painfully polite conversation that Dana did not spend nearly enough time thinking about home.

When it was over, and they emerged from their respective privacy booths, Athos and Dana looked at each other, and both said ‘you look like shit’ practically in unison. They calculated the time, and decided that since they were officially off duty until this damned meeting with the Sun-kissed, they could afford two hours to get filthy, stinking drunk and another six hours to sleep (if sleep was even possible) in the basic bunks Treville had assigned them on the Bastion, before slapping on all the Sobriety patches in the Solar System and pretending to be respectable members of the Royal Fleet.

It was not the most responsible decision that Dana had ever made, and she was well aware of her hypocrisy at enabling Athos in his ridiculously self-destructive behaviour, especially when she had been so very angry at him back on the Frenzy Kenzie.

But damn, she needed it.

They woke up tangled together in a single bunk, fully clothed and feeling like death warmed up.

“Why didn’t we use the Sobriety patches before we went to sleep?” Dana groaned with her head pressed underneath a newly-printed pillow that was so stiff it might give her a paper cut.

“Wouldn’t have slept,” Athos grumbled.

After a brief tussle in which they discovered that old age and treachery was indeed superior to youth when it came to fighting over who got to use the sonic shower first (honestly, who knew that Athos had quite so many elbows?) they managed to dress themselves in flight suits and jackets. Dana still had the one Aramis had given her, while Athos had to suffer a newly printed one after some sort of mishap at Dovecote Red that he would not discuss. They buzzed each other’s hair short, and stepped back to eye the results in the mirror.

“The pride of the Royal Fleet,” Athos said with grim satisfaction.

Dana trod on his foot. “Don’t be bitter. We scrub up okay.”

The first day of intergalactic diplomacy was indescribably dull. Athos and Dana were not needed, for the most part, and found themselves relegated to a side gallery where they could observe and be called upon if necessary.

It was not necessary.

The centre table was taken up by the Regent, the Cardinal, and Amiral Treville. Surounding them were what turned out to be a team of expert linguists, xenobiologists and code-breakers, who were all there to aid communication between the Sun-kissed and the representatives of the human Solar System.

Three Mendaki were present among the ‘alien experts’ presumably because they were aliens themselves, though Dana was not sure how that meant they had any particular perspective on the psychology of the Sun-kissed. Still, they had brought a hefty array of translation units with them for demonstration and/or practical use.

Five minutes before communications formally opened, a messenger arrived and had private words with Cardinal Richelieu, before climbing the short stairs to join Athos and Dana in the side gallery.

Dana didn’t even feel surprised that it turned out to be Agent Rosnay Cho, almost unrecognisable with her usual sweep of hair tucked under a black Raven cap, and a flight suit to match instead of the usual candy colours. Dana had grown accustomed to the idea that Ro would turn up anywhere, at any time, for no reason that she could readily understand.

“What are you doing here?” Dana asked nevertheless. “Who’s in command of the Frenzy Kenzie now?”

“Classified,” said Ro, placing a finger to her lips. “And also, I don’t remember. A Sabre, I think. Jussac?”

“That’s worse than you,” said Dana in horror.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” preened Ro.

“The Frenzy Kenzie is a Musketeer supplies transport, why would they put a Sabre in command?”

Ro lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Perhaps the Regent has finally accepted that the world would be more efficient if the Church ran everything?”

“Let me guess,” Athos drawled. “You’ve been hauled in here because you’re another member of the ‘I have intimate knowledge of Milord De Winter’ club.”

Ro raised her eyebrows and smirked as she took a seat a little way from them both. “Well,” she said. “Not as intimate as either of you, as it turns out.”

Athos glared at her. Ro stared back, her mouth still curved up, and the two of them faced off against each other in a long, silent challenge.

The only thing that stopped Dana beating her head against the wall was that she had been doing too much of that lately, and was starting to worry about brain damage.

It didn’t get any better once the Sun-kissed delegation deigned to appear on the bright digital screens of the meeting room, largely because they refused to communicate in any known language.

There were sounds, and bursts of light, and some kind of static chatter, all of which the team around the table were scrambling to identify.

“Well, we know something new about the Sun-kissed,” Athos said quietly as he observed the chaos.

“Yes, they’re arseholes,” Ro said, deadpan.

Athos gave her a look that was half surprise and half appreciation.

Dana stifled a laugh. “How do you figure that?”

“Well, they speak our language,” said Athos. “We know they do. Au – Milord isn’t the only one. The last war had at least forty or fifty spies dropped among the Fleet itself, and seeded in the various planetary communities – and that’s only the ones we know about. They looked like us and they damn well spoke like us. So they can do it any time they like.”

“The Amiral and the Cardinal were both active during the last war,” Ro observed. “They’re well aware of this.”

“That must be why her Eminence is twitching so much,” said Athos.

“She’s very keen on the value of time,” said Ro. “Wasting time is up there with Elementalism on her Eminence’s list of personal hates.”

“It’s not really wasting time, though, is it?” Dana mused. “I mean, surely it’s better for us to learn how to communicate with them properly now if we’re going to have any kind of long-term diplomacy with their people.”

Athos and Ro exchanged a weary look.

“She’s very young,” Athos said conversationally.

“Tell me about it,” agreed Ro.

Dana was indignant. “I don’t need you two ganging up on me! Besides, you’re only cranky because you know I’m right.”

Six days later, Dana was prepared to admit that she was wrong. She still maintained that it was important that humans learned to communicate with the Sun-kissed in their own language. On the other hand… was there seriously no way to hurry the process up?

Some progress had been made, that was for sure. The last two days had featured a lot more in the way of muttered, excitable conversations among the translation team, and less of the glazed eyes and desperate panic that had featured in the first couple of sessions.

For Dana, Athos and Rosnay Cho, it had been an interminably dull week in which lights flashing on screens and experts getting excited about sound frequencies were not nearly the most interesting thing.

No, the interesting thing was the endless tournament of noughts and crosses that the three of them had been playing, and the elaborate system of rewards, forfeits and handicaps they had devised to make the game more of a challenge.

Dana might or might not have lost too many matches because of the deeply unfair ‘lose a mark off the board if you smile at a cute text from your not-boyfriend in exile’ rule. She was dangerously close to earning the dread ‘truth or dare’ forfeit when they were interrupted by a grim-faced Treville.

“Fruit break already, boss?” Athos asked languidly, not even looking up from where he was sprawled on the bench. “You do spoil us.”

Treville looked at the three of them with a mixture of impatience and resignation. “I don’t suppose any of you were paying attention to today’s work?”

“We did try,” said Ro, who had something of a startled school child expression on her face, obviously less accustomed to Amiral Treville taking notice of her, let alone disapproving of her behaviour. “But the effects of paying attention are so similar to the effects of a migraine, that…”

“Yes, I get the picture. What about you, D’Artagnan.”

“I wasn’t napping?” Dana ventured, which was true if unhelpful. “What was it you particularly wanted our feedback on, boss?”

It was the first time she had called Treville ‘boss’ since becoming a Musketeer, and it sent a little thrill through her.

Treville cross her arms. “We’ve been making substantial progress, and the latest breakthrough in communications has revealed something of our adversary’s motives.”

Athos looked at least slightly alert. “Do we know about Truth?”

“They’ve promised us that they will open a channel to the planet to prove that the majority population are still alive down there.

“That’s good,” said Dana carefully. “Isn’t it?”

“That depends,” drawled Ro. “On what it cost us.”

Treville flicked her gaze in Ro’s direction, and nodded. “They want something from us as a gesture of good faith.”

“Is it something within our power?” Athos asked, all seriousness now.

Treville blew out a breath. “They believe we are harbouring a criminal who had been condemned to death in absentia by their government, and they are prepared to destroy us, planet by planet, to get him back into their custody.”

Athos frowned. “So why can’t we just…” and then he paused.

Dana was way ahead of him, and her own awkward pause joined his to join an epic silence of embarrassment.

It couldn’t be, could it?

“Holy shit,” said Ro, and started laughing maniacally. “I guess you two are here for a good reason after all.”

“We don’t know for certain,” said Treville. “There are – roadblocks to identifying this criminal.”

Athos squared his shoulders. “Show us what you have, and D’Artagnan and I will see if it’s who we all think it is – shut the hell up, Agent Cho, it’s not funny.”

“It really is kind of funny,” Ro gasped. “Because, come on. Who else is it going to be?”

Milord Vaniel De Winter stepped off the Matagot and into a cluster of assistants and bureaucrats ready to inform him as to all the work he needed to catch up on between the space dock and Prime House, the centre of government on Valour.

He did love politics but oh, there were times when the paperwork seriously got in the way of being a covert assassin.

Slipping on Vaniel was like a comfortable, finely tailored suit – Milord had something of a soft spot for Vaniel, who was kinder and wittier than most of the personalities he had developed over the years. More ambitious than Linton Grey, the soft-spoken diplomatic aide (and covert religious terrorist); more clever and careful than Slate the Raven (and occasional kidnapper); certainly saner than the wildly destructive Winter, who existed mostly as a hallucinogenic virus inside the heads of his enemies.

The mission prickled under his skin, a constant distraction as he signed forms, made decisions, and agreed to meetings that he probably would never attend.

“First Minister Beautru wishes to receive you at your earliest convenience,” said Nonja, a flat-faced and humourless young woman who was excellent at scheduling but hell to share an office with.

It was at times like this, Milord genuinely missed the snarky, glitter-strewn irreverence of Kitty and her space ponies. There were many reasons for which he wished to murder Dana D’Artagnan with his own hands, but depriving him of his favourite assistant was high on the list.

“Back at the office,” he said firmly. “We’ll sort out a timetable for essential appointments then.” He would not, of course, be going anywhere near the office.

There was a government-issue skimmer waiting for him, to transport him across town to Prime House. Milord hesitated, because if he got in, several of these hangers on would pile in with him so as to keep him signing and agreeing to appointments. He hadn’t actually intended to go to Prime House, not with a Duchess to kill.

As he thought rapidly of ways to express his intention to travel “to Prime House” alone and unaccompanied, a familiar voice broke into the buzz.

“Vaniel will be riding with me. Affairs of state are all very well but family comes first.”

Milord looked up, just as the Countess of Clarick strode towards him as if she expected anyone and everyone to leap out of her path. Given the way that the crowd parted around her, she wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Bee,” he said faintly, because this was entirely unplanned, and not entirely convenient.

“Vaniel, darling,” she said, kissing him on each cheek and then tucking her arm into his. “Come along. I have my own skimmer waiting and it will give us a chance to talk.”

He leaned into her and allowed her to steer him away, because it solved the problem of government distractions in one fell swoop.

What it didn’t solve, was the problem of a sister-in-law. One did not take a sister-in-law along on assassinations.

“Not yet,” she whispered, and laughed out loud as if he had told her a joke.

Which was, now he came to think of it, the most suspicious thing she could possibly have done.

Once they were both comfortably seated in the padded interior of the De Winter skimmer, Bee flicked a few autopilot options, and then leaned back to place her booted feet on the dashboard. “Time we talked, brother dear. I’ve been having all kinds of fascinating chats with Musketeers since we last spoke.”

Vaniel went cold all over. What do you know, Bee? “What on earth are you talking about?” he asked instead, faking his usual careless drawl. “Musketeers aren’t worth talking to, sweetness. They’re drones, that’s like trying to have a conversation with a random piece of Palace furniture.”

“Oh this one had scads of interesting things to say,” said Bee, her mouth hard. “Vaniel. I think it’s time you and I talked about family loyalty, among other things.”

Well, this was unlikely to be pleasant.

You have been reading Musketeer Space, by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Tune in next week for another chapter! Please comment, share and link. Musketeer Space is free to read, but if you’d like to support the project for as little as $1 per month, please visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. Milestones already unlocked include the Musketeer Media Monday posts, the Robotech Rewatch posts, and “Seven Days of Joyeux,” a special Christmas prequel novella which was released in December 2014. My next funding milestone will unlock GORGEOUS COVER ART.