Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 52

Musketeer Space Part 31: Musketeers at War

It’s Musketeer day again! A bit of a milestone today, because we’re officially halfway through the story. If you haven’t been reading along each week, this is a great time to get started from the beginning. Later this week, I’ll be launching daily posts of the “Christmas” prequel novella: Seven Days of Joyeux, finishing up on Christmas Day. In extra exciting news, the story will be illustrated with a fantastic piece of art by Katy Shuttleworth.

If you’re not planning to start reading Musketeer Space until there’s a finished novel for you to read (valid life choice!) then you can absolutely read Seven Days of Joyeux anyway – apart from a few details of backstory that have slow reveal in the novel, there are no spoilers for the main narrative. Sadly there’s no D’Artagnan either, as the Three Musketeers haven’t met her yet, but hopefully there will be enough Joyeux festivities, sinister happenings, banter and snogging to make up for that.

Thanks to those who have been reading along every week! Sometimes the stats are what keep me going. Special extra thanks & kisses to my regular Patreon supporters – I appreciate you so very much. Taking a monthly wage for this story helps me to justify all the time I spend on it. If you’ve enjoyed the story so far, please consider signing up as a Patreon supporter, for as little as $1 a month. You can sign up at any time – and all supporters will receive the complete ebook of Musketeer Space at the end, plus other rewards depending on the tier you choose.

Check out this week’s Musketeer Media Monday post, Musketeers in Technicolor (1948) in which Gene Kelly does not sing or dance, but still manages to throw in some fancy footwork, and Lana Turner’s beauty spot deserves an Oscar.

In the mean time, let’s throw some interplanetary politics and Dana angst at you! I’ll be back in two weeks to kick off the second half of Musketeer Space – 31 weeks down, 31 to go!

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 30

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE: Since leaving her home of Gascon Station to find a new life for herself as a (maybe future) Musketeer on Paris Satellite, Dana D’Artagnan has tripped over a conspiracy, been robbed, sold her ship, failed to get the job of her dreams, learned to pilot a mecha, acquired an engie, foiled a secret agent, mostly rescued Conrad Su when he was kidnapped that time, rented a room from a suspicious landlady, prevented an interplanetary sex scandal, flirted with a politically obsessed possible criminal mastermind, crashed a spaceship, failed to rescue Conrad Su when he was kidnapped that other time, embraced the Duchess of Buckingham, been rewarded by the Prince Consort Alek of Auster, and most importantly of all: found and lost and found again the Three Musketeers, three of the dearest friends she has ever had in her life. Also there’s been quite a bit of drinking and sword-fighting.

NOW READ ON.

Chapter 31: Musketeers at War

As Dana stared at the viewscreen where the Regent’s declaration of war still hung in the air, her first thought was of Athos, of the terrible look in his eyes when he confessed to her that his husband had been a spy for the Sun-kissed. That he had loved one of them, an alien, without even knowing it. But he showed no sign of falling apart again, not right now. His jaw was tense, and he muttered to Aramis, “Hell of a time to be without a ship.”

“You’ll have time to acquire a new helm and harness,” Aramis said. “And a hull to wrap around it.”

“Not a lot of time,” Athos grated back. But then his eyes flicked to Dana, and the look in his face had nothing to do with that deep misery he had spilled out to her on the floor of the cellar of the Gilded Lily.

It was pity, she realised with a sinking feeling. It was – he was looking at her as if he expected her to be the one to fall apart. Why would he think that? Her three friends might be going off to war without her, but she was part of the Mecha Squad, it was hardly as if she would be left out altogether…

Then she realised that the screen had shifted from the press conference to show the recent attacks that had inspired the Regent’s declaration of war, and Dana’s mouth went dry so hard that it stung the inside of her cheeks.

Gascon Station. That was Gascon Station.

She watched the broadcast in silence, taking in the details. Six incendiary bombs, planted in secret across the station, detonating at ten minute intervals. Emergency response thrown into disarray. Life support disconnected across whole sectors of the station.

Ten thousand casualties. Even taking into account passing trade and miners on rec leave, that was a third of the normal population of Gascon. She couldn’t even start thinking about specifics, about which areas had hit and which people she knew were most likely to have been where at that time of day. All she could hear was a faint buzzing sound in her ears. Her feet were numb.

Aramis squeezed Dana’s hand.

Dana heard Athos and Porthos arguing about which of them were going to take over the helm from Bonnie. Athos insisted that he was faster, but Porthos overruled him on the grounds that the Hoyden was her damned ship.

Dana wondered if Athos was even capable of flying. Had Grimaud given his last ampoule of nexus to Dana when they were busy crashing the Parry Riposte, or did she have further supplies with her?

The broadcast flicked from the damage done to Gascon Station to a repeat of the Regent’s declaration of war, then the edited highlights of the questions she had answered afterwards.

“I need to contact my family,” Dana said aloud. No one heard her in all the arguing, so she repeated it again, louder.

Porthos turned to her, nodding. “I have subspace credit. Give Bonnie your residential codes and she’ll try to get the call through. Athos, I see you, if your butt even touches my chair I am going to kick you in it.”

Bonnie relinquished the helm to Porthos, and drew Dana back into the cabin so they could connect the call. It didn’t work the first time they tried, or the second. None of Dana’s family comms were working, not her Mama or Papa’s personal studs, nor the home mainframe, or any of their work numbers. Neither of her sisters replied. The emergency contact line was running hot, and they were unlikely to make it to the front of the queue before they got back to Paris.

“I’ll keep trying,” Bonnie said finally, taking the tablet out of Dana’s shaking hands. “I’ll get Planchet on to it, the kid is a genius with communications. Give us a little while, we’ll get you through.”

And she did, but it took an hour, and an hour is far too long to be thinking that your family might not exist any more.

By the time the call came through, tensions were running high in the Hoyden. Whoever’s idea it had been to cram all three Musketeers and Dana in one Musket-class dart had been a dumbass. Aramis and Athos were sniping at each other about religious doctrine, of all things, both equally frustrated at their inability to make the ship go faster by mind control alone.

The newsreels only stopped showing the endless clips of the destruction on Gascon Station and the Regent’s speech in order to report that fifty alien ships had unfolded in Truth space, rendering the planet and its many orbital cities (Artemisia, Valentine, Lucretia, Rochelle) effectively under siege. No shots had yet been fired, but it was clearly a message, as much as the attack on Gascon and Freedom had been: one planet at a time, we are coming for you.

Porthos, who was flying as fast as she reasonably could thanks to the wonders of spaceship design and long-lasting power globes, refused to speak to either Athos or Aramis any more except to say ‘shut up, both of you, and stop acting like children’ and ‘I will make you walk the fucking plank, I swear to God.’

“Boss,” Planchet said suddenly, her voice coming through Dana’s ear from the Morningstar as if she was right next to her on the bunk. “I’ve got your call, standby.”

Dana caught her breath and then she heard her mother’s voice, business-like and firm over the subspace comm line. “Dana, is that you?”

“Mama,” Dana burst out. “Are you – is everyone -” But no, asking about everyone was too much. She had been watching list of known fatalities grow every time it was repeated on the smaller vid screen in the cabin. So many names that she knew, friends and extended family and acquaintances. People she had grown up with. “Are you all right? Is Papa?”

“It’s bad, darling, but we’re holding on,” said Mama, and that assurance was enough to make Dana sob out loud, to beg forgiveness for leaving home, and to swear to kill all Sun-kissed, one at a time.

But she stayed calm, and asked sensible questions, and tried not to break too hard as her mother reported what had been destroyed, and who was dead, and what was happening now in the wake of the disaster.

At one point, Mama stopped talking altogether, and after a scrabbling frequency sound, her elder sister Debo came on instead, sounding stiff and robotic. “Di and Pippa were missing for six hours,” she said, referring to the middle D’Artagnan sister and her wife. “The kids are okay, they weren’t in the school that was hit. And Papa didn’t want you to know, but he’s been evacuated to a hospice ship – we can’t do more than field treatment on station. He was caught in one of the explosions. His burns are superficial but extensive.”

As Dana talked, and mostly listened, burying herself in the sound of her older sister’s familiar, no-nonsense voice, Athos and Aramis came to sit near her on the bunk.

Athos patted her briefly on the shoulder, in a ‘if only we had swords I might be willing to talk about your feelings but probably not’ kind of way, but he sat close enough to Dana that she could feel the warmth of him. Aramis had no such restraint – every time Dana’s voice stumbled over the very basic task of exchanging words with her sister and then her mother again, Aramis would reach out and rub small circles against the base of her spine.

They were here, and her family were alive, and there was more to think about.

War, and what it meant for all of them.

24 hours later, Dana stared at the mecha-suit. She had been immersed in ships – and darts in particular – for so long that it seemed completely impossible that she had once known what to do with one of these.

Still, she was going to have to remember fast.

“Cadet D’Artagnan,” said a voice behind her. “Good to see you back from leave.”

Dana turned, startled, to find her commanding officer standing behind her. Commandant Essart was a short, solid woman with greying hair. There were times when she seemed almost motherly to her cadets, but she could yell as loud as Amiral Treville when she needed to.

“Ready for service, Commandant,” Dana said, saluting.

“Good to hear. The rosters for the next two months will be posted in the mess later today. Two mecha units will remain here on Lunar Palais for city security, and other two will be shipping out with the Royal Fleet to deal with the Siege of Truth.”

Dana did not want to stay. The thought of staying here when the Fleet were going to war was awful beyond words, but she understood that they couldn’t leave Paris and Lunar Palais defenceless at a time like this. She nodded, without saying anything.

Truth was as close to Freedom and the remains of Gascon Station as she was going to get while she was still signed up with the military. Would it feel worse to be so damned close and still not there?

“You, however, will not be with any of them, if you accept this,” said Essart, and she handed over an envelope with a familiar blue fleur-de-lis seal upon it. “Amiral Treville is short on pilots for supply transport. She’s offered you a position, if you want it. Your crew would be printing and ferrying supplies for the troops, providing parts for repair and replacement weapons. When things get quiet, you’ll be boosting them closer to Freedom for help with the Gascon relief effort.”

Dana opened her mouth and closed it again. Treville wanted her. She’d be with the Musketeers, even if she still wouldn’t be one of them. She would have her own ship even if it was a supplies venturer rather than the musket-class dart she still longed for.

If anything happened to Aramis, Athos or Porthos, she would be in the midst of the action, she might hear about it first. She wouldn’t be left behind, out of the loop. And there was a chance she would actually get a glimpse of home.

But if she stayed with the Mecha Squad, she had a 50% chance of combat action, might actually have an opportunity to take her revenge against the bastard Sun-kissed.

“Can I think about it?” she asked, not realising she was going to say those words until they were spilling out of her mouth.

Essart looked almost sympathetic. “Take three hours,” she said. “Get your head on straight. Then report to me with your decision.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dana breathed in and out, letting the mecha respond to her thoughts and movements. She had been a long time away, but she was still more attuned to the machine than she had been when she first started. It would come back.

She thought about taking a mecha into combat, of blasting the Sun-kissed ships out of the sky of Truth.

She thought about her Papa, lying in a hospice ship and complaining about being made to stay immobile while they worked on replacing his skin.

She thought about how being here, protecting the Regent herself, was a vital job.

But surely she had done enough for the Crown lately. It was time to think about the solar system, and how she could actually be of most use to the war effort.

Dana decided.

Milord Vaniel De Winter was not a loving man. Love was for fools. He had no particular feeling for his child, the De Winter heir, who had been neatly packed off to a boarding school as soon as it was convenient. His most recent wife, Delia De Winter, had not inspired much in the way of love before her untimely death. He tolerated her sister Bianca because she was amusing, and loyal, and played a mean game of cards, but he would not blink before sacrificing her if it proved necessary.

Romance was a political tool like any other. Milord allowed himself the occasional obsession, like his current hunger for the fascinating Marquise de Wardes, but only after he had formed a strategy for how that romance would be useful to his current plans.

If he loved anything at all, it was his ship.

The Matagot was a masterpiece of hidden depths. She was a dagger-class raven scout, polished black and gleaming on the outside. If you weren’t paying attention – and people rarely did pay sufficient attention – it looked like any other messenger ship.

If you knew what to look for, you might notice how well preserved the ship was, without the usual wear and tear of anything piloted by a Raven. The shell was glossy and smooth, and the engine purred like the cat of legend from which the ship had taken her name.

A lot of money had been spent on keeping this ship in the kind of prime condition that a Raven messenger could rarely afford.

Officially, Milord and his sister-in-law Bianca were staying at the Julien, a five star hotel on Lunar Palais. Bee certainly spent much of her time there, with her ridiculous friends who were currently indulging in their usual riot of gaming, carousing and competitive sports. She also had a suite on Paris Satellite itself for easy access to the rec centres and TeamJoust tanks.

Bee’s friends were not the only reason that Milord avoided both hotel suits. The Matagot had everything he needed – but most particularly, a double office allowing for himself and his assistant Kitty to work in separate spaces so that her cheerful chatter did not drive him up the wall.

He liked his office very much – it was less spacious than the one he used back on Valour, but it had a desk and a comfortable couch and every communication frequency in the solar system. There was even space to pace back and forth, when his nervous energy got the better of him.

The dagger-class scout was roomier than most variations of this kind of ship. There were several cabins, a basic kitchen and a gym. More space than most hotels had to offer.

Kitty’s office was – something that Milord suffered, because good assistants were hard to find and while Kitty was bossy, overly talkative and deeply irritating, she would work twenty hours non stop if he needed her to, she was unflinchingly loyal, and she did a good line in sarcastic banter which was, he had to admit, his greatest weakness.

In exchange for Kitty’s relentless work ethic, her ability to remind him to eat and sleep at regular intervals when he was particularly caught up, and the fact that she had worked for him for five years without reporting any of his more illegal activities to the Crown, Milord paid her very well and allowed her to decorate her own office.

It was a constant source of distress to him, her office, but if he kept his eyes straight ahead and walked through very quickly on his way to his own space, he did not have to get overly distracted by the childish, bright pastel wall decorations and the collection of flying glitter pony toys that littered her desk.

The whole thing had become more tolerable once he installed a second coffee printer in his own office. No one should ever be faced with rainbows and sparkly plush space unicorns when they were in search of coffee.

Today he was in the gym, walking on the treadmill while answering correspondence from the office back on Valour when Kitty’s bright, cheery voice broke in on the music in his headphones. “Your smoking hot 1500 appointment is here early, Milord. Shall I show her to your office to wait for you, or can I flirt with her while you make yourself ready?”

“Whichever my guest prefers,” he said, maintaining the usual affable charm that he used around his assistant. It was good practice for him, the illusion of an intense but gentle politician. Kitty’s perception of him often influenced how others saw him, and the cover of Milord Vaniel De Winter was too useful to risk. Vaniel De Winter found Kitty deeply amusing, and allowed her to push him around because it made her feel useful. Milord simply hoped he would not have to kill her some day, because how the hell did one dispose of that many glitter ponies?

“Any word from the Marquise de Wardes’ people?” he asked.

“She has definitely taken up the Regent’s offer to stay in residence at the Palace for some time,” said Kitty. “Still working on that personal appointment, though. She’s wily, and everyone wants a piece of her. Might take more than a bunch of flowers and a pair of designer heels in a gift box, if you know what I mean.”

Milord felt his mouth press into a thin line. The Marquise de Wardes would be a fascinating political ally to add to his collection, but so far his overtures had been met with polite reserve.

If he couldn’t win her politically, he might have to try an actual seduction which was far more time-consuming.

He took a brief sonic shower and dressed in business clothes for the appointment. As he straightened his tie in the mirror, he shifted his hair from comfortable silver-blond back to slightly dishevelled brown. Not that his guest didn’t know both sides of him, but it was a code to himself as much as to her. Silver meant flirting, espionage and pretending to be equals. Brown meant Valour politics, New Aristocracy, and business all the way.

Kitty was alone in her pony paradise when Milord walked through. Slurping her way through a foaming green tea frappe the size of her forearm, she gave him a brief finger wave as he walked through.

Special Agent Rosnay Cho awaited him in his office, her large black boots propped up on his desk and a cup of black coffee balanced precariously on the arm of her chair. “Not interrupting anything, was I?” she asked, sounding thoroughly amused by herself.

Milord frowned at her, unsettled by her early appearance. Appointment times should be sacrosanct. “What’s so urgent that it couldn’t wait another hour?”

Ro surveyed him thoughtfully from beneath her dark sweep of hair. Her flight suit today was a bright aqua, as frivolous as always. It was one of many small things she did to make people underestimate how dangerous she was; Milord appreciated that about her. It was a technique he often used himself, and there were times when he wondered if Kitty, with her purple hair and sugared drinks and ridiculous pony obsession, was actually doing exactly the same thing. Possibly she was an assassin in disguise.

“I was at a loose end, and there’s a lot to do today,” Ro said after a moment. “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”

Milord rolled his eyes at her. He allowed a certain amount of teasing, for the same reason that Ro wore candy-coloured flight suits. It didn’t hurt to let other people think you were fair game. Intimacy was like anything else – a tool to be carefully distributed, and then exploited. “How can I be of use to the Cardinal today?”

Ro blinked steadily at him. “I’m not here on behalf of her Eminence at the moment. Or at least – not entirely. The Regent has given me a mission, and I thought you might have some intelligence to offer.”

Very interesting. It wasn’t unlike Ro to roll where the weather took her, but it surprised him that the Cardinal was allowing her loyalties to be shared like this. Milord let his voice drop into a low, amused drawl. “I’m honoured. How can I help the Regent?”

“I’m on the lookout for an asset that the Prince Consort is rather upset about losing.”

He laughed at that. “Not the little tailor?”

“He’s been kidnapped.”

“I hear he makes a habit of that.” Milord threaded his fingers together and raised his eyebrows at her. “Usually it’s you.”

Ro scowled. “Not this time. Do you know where he is, or not?”

“I couldn’t begin to imagine. But I promise I’ll keep an eye out for him on my travels. People often turn up in the strangest places.”

Ro gave him a knowing look. “The reward is very generous.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Anything else?”

The stare he got from her was intense and thorough, as if she was trying to pull the knowledge of Conrad Su’s whereabouts directly from his mind. “D’Artagnan,” she said, after a moment.

Milord batted his eyelashes at her. “Who?”

Ro looked impatient. “She’s a new favourite of the Prince Consort, and by extension, the Regent. Hangs around with Musketeers.”

“I don’t believe I know anyone by that name,” Milord replied with his sweetest smile. And it was true, to a point. The woman he had met on that train back on Valour had gone by an entirely different name.

“The Cardinal doesn’t want anything to happen to Dana D’Artagnan,” Ro said firmly. “Not in retaliation for – recent events, or anything else. Her Eminence is all for a unified front with the Crown these days. So D’Artagnan is off limits.”

Neither of them mentioned diamonds, as the obvious reason why someone might wish to retaliate against the young pilot who had been making herself so very troublesome lately.

“D’Artagnan is off limits,” Milord agreed. “Got it.” He continued to smile, his gaze fixed on Ro;s beautiful scarred face until she stood and took her leave of him.

“Always a pleasure, Milord,” she sighed.

“You too, sweetness,” he said, and they kissed the corners of each other’s mouths in a polite pretence that they weren’t now on opposing sides of a very interesting game.

He waited until he was absolutely sure she was gone, and then chimed through the comm to Kitty. “Any more appointments this afternoon?”

“No, Milord de Winter,” she said cheerfully.

“Good. I think we might take a little joyride. File a flight plan for the Tower. I want to check on our guest.”

“Whatever you say, boss. Will we be back by tomorrow night? It’s Karaoke night in the South quarter, and some very cute engies offered to buy me drinks.”

“Oh, you know how I hate to interfere with your social life. It will be a short trip this time.”

“Right you are, boss.”

Milord closed the door between their adjoining offices and looked at himself in the mirrored surface. He straightened his tie and the collar of his shirt. It had unsettled him, to break off his exercise routine. Ro knew him too well. The only reason for her to have arrived early was to rattle him – to make him feel off balance.

He would not allow it. “Kitty, scratch that,” he called through his comm. “We’ll stay with the original plan. Our guest can wait a few more days.” The last thing he wanted was to be followed to the holding location of his prisoner, because a friend had made him nervous. “Order a security sweep of the Matagot, from top to tail. Let’s be sure Captain Cho didn’t leave us any small, blinking gifts.”

“Isn’t she a friend of yours, Milord?” Kitty said in surprise.

“Oh, she is,” he agreed, gazing at his reflection in the mirror. He stretched his neck casually and let himself fall for a moment into his natural shape. Red blossomed across his skin, highlighting his cheekbones and the soft creases in the corners of his eyes. His eyes darkened to blown black pupils with tiny darts of golden light flecked through them. His skin flooded with the warmth that smelled like home.

In this moment, he was not Winter or Vaniel or Milord or Auden or Slate or Gray or any of the other names he had worn in service of his long career of pretending to be human. For a few precious seconds, he was gloriously himself.

Then he blinked back to Milord Vaniel de Winter, Secretary of the Interior on Valour, political obsessive, father and brother and good person to have in your corner. Tousled brown hair, pale skin, grey eyes.

“Rosnay Cho is a very good friend of mine,” he assured Kitty, adjusting his cuffs and smoothing out the soft lines of his jacket. “That’s what makes her so dangerous.”

He would allow no more personal indulgences. There was a war on, after all.

A war against the human race, and the solar system they held so dear.

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 a special Yuletide prequel story to be released in December. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock ART.

Musketeers in Technicolor (1948)

This is my tenth Musketeer Media Monday post!

SPOILER WARNING: As with Musketeers Break My Heart Seventies Style, The Three Musketeers (1948) is a surprisingly comprehensive adaptation of the original novel, so if you’re enjoying reading Musketeer Space without knowing the narrative beats of the book, this might reveal some revealy things. Also, this essay spoils the hell out of the movie, but that’s what Musketeer Media Monday is all about!

Did you know there was a Technicolor Three Musketeers movie starring Lana Turner and Gene Kelly, with Angela Lansbury and Vincent Price and a bunch of other fairly famous people of the era?

I DID NOT KNOW THIS THING ABOUT THE WORLD WE LIVE IN.

The first thing you need to know about this film, after its mere existence, is that Gene Kelly, in his late thirties, is far too old to play D’Artagnan.

The second thing you need to know is that his performance is basically everything that Kathy Seldon ever said about Don Lockwood in Singin’ in the Rain.

The third thing you need to know is that this D’Artagnan has a hat, though it’s an odd sort of beret with a feather in it.

Buttercup is adorable. This is my favourite film version of D’Artagnan’s yellow horse. It’s all shaggy and silly looking, just the sort of thing that a young man might be a bit embarrassed about. Sadly the horse is not in this movie nearly enough for my liking.

Ten minutes in, I realised that just because Gene Kelly is in something doesn’t mean that it’s a musical. This was devastating, because I had been SO LOOKING FORWARD to a Musketeer musical from the moment I discovered the existence of this one and ordered the DVD. With possible tap dancing.

Oh how I wanted this film to have tap-dancing. And musical numbers. Though to be fair I keep hoping that about The West Wing too, and I’m four seasons in and I don’t think it’s going to happen.

On the other hand, Athos is blond and sarcastic (my favourite type of Athos) and wears silver and peacock blue, Porthos wears pink and Aramis wears pale apricot stripes.

Everything is splendid and nothing hurts. These Musketeers are colour coded JUST LIKE IN THE BARBIE MOVIE.

The three way meet-cute goes about as per usual, with a certain degree of poise and snark. Then the fencing starts and – oh there’s the tap-dancing!

I can’t take my eyes off the costumes. Why are there no Musketeer conventions? This film needs to be cosplayed the hell out of. Oh, the swashing and the buckling and the leaping and the footwork in floppy boots.

It’s so pretty.

Two minutes into a duel that combines slapstick comedy with excellent sword skills, I have forgiven Gene Kelly for almost everything. It’s no wonder that the Musketeers want to be friends with him after that splendid performance.

King Louis, AKA The Cowardly Lion actor Frank Morgan, is outwardly cross at D’Artagnan for humiliating his guards, but then hands over a reward and prescribes a clothing makeover – which leads to a lovely scene in which D’Artagnan rides up to his new digs in fancypants clothes (and an even fancier hat) only to be mocked by random passers by.

If a Musketeer film is willing to mock D’Artagnan when he gets too pompous, I’m pretty happy with it.

But what about the Bonancieux plot? For a start, Constance is his landlord’s “god-daughter” rather than his potentially adulterous wife. Not sure if that bodes well or not for Constance. More importantly, they include the plot point where D’Artagnan spies on his landlord’s apartment through a trapdoor/hole in his floor, which is not a detail most films include.

June Allyson is no Racquel Welch in the comic actress stakes, but D’Artagnan produces enough comedy for both of them. I like her a lot better when she starts laughing at him in the middle of his professions of love. Sadly it’s just about the only moment of humour that she gets.

There’s so much lace in this movie, it’s practically a character in its own right. So the Duke of Buckingham’s lace collar is having an affair with the lace fringing on Queen Angela Lansbury’s saucy nightgown (which looks a lot like a ballgown but slightly more off the shoulder).

Also, the diamond studs that she presents to Buckingham are my favourite diamond studs in all the Musketeer media thus far – they’re like enormous shiny gobstoppers, you could kill a man with them.

Lana Turner (appearing in colour for the first time, go Lana!) adds to the glamorous fashion parade of cinematic Miladies with a spectacular green and black number as she meets Vincent Price’s (YES, VINCENT PRICE) elegant, sinister Richelieu.

Not Cardinal Richelieu, I should add. The “Cardinal” can be implied, but the title was deliberately left out of the script so as not to offend Roman Catholics. So he’s Not-Cardinal Vincent Price. And oh, that voice is delicious.

Off the boys go on their diamond quest! The plot parts of this story are definitely rushed through, to get to the action as speedily as possible. It’s no wonder that people are surprised to find out how much standing around in rooms talking there is in the actual book.

Even when the Musketeers wear their formal blue uniforms (which also come with fancy crocheted lace collars because everyone wears lace always) they wear their colour-coded fancy pants costumes and matching hats. I am never going to quite recover from Porthos’ pink hat. I hope they get one for Howard Charles.

Aramis has a particularly spiky lace collar when they are ambushed by Red Guard on the highway, shortly after he says something about all the fond memories he has of that particular stretch of road, strongly suggesting that he’s had a lot of sex on horseback, or possibly in the back of a carriage.

D’Artagnan loses his compatriots incredibly quickly, which leaves him fighting off basically all the Red Guards ever along a pretty bit of Californian coastline, with a bit of cliff-leaping and rock-hopping that nicely foreshadows That Duel in The Princess Bride.

At one point, he duels Jussac to death over some uneven rockpools, while dodging ocean spray. As you do.

The Marquis de Wardes! Films almost never include him, because he looks like a throwaway character and hardly appears but that doesn’t mean he’s not important. Well, he’s a Count here rather than a Marquis, but still. He arrives at Calais at the same time as D’Artagnan, wearing some fierce hot pink gloves, and his permission note from the Not-Cardinal comes in mighty handy.

It is retroactively implied that D’Artagnan beat up De Wardes and stole his letter… but also his hot pink gloves. Make of that what you will.

Okay, my new favourite thing about Lana Turner’s Milady is not her semi-Elizabethan collar (English fashions, madame?) or her spectacular hats. No, it’s the fact that she wears fake beauty spots and puts them in DIFFERENT PLACES ON HER FACE depending on her outfit.

Somebody give Lana Turner’s heart-shaped beauty spot an Oscar.

The trip to England might be remarkably quick but to my utter delight, the journey home takes longer and we get a proper reunion scene between D’Artagnan and Porthos (who is recovering from a butt wound) who reports that Aramis has renounced the world (“But it’s only been a few days!” protests D’Artagnan). Best of all, they give us the bit with a drunk Athos confessing his tragic backstory in the cellar. You all know how much I love that bit, right?

This might be a jolly and lightweight version of The Three Musketeers, but I can’t fault its narrative priorities. Poor, miserable Athos.

There’s some nice use of actual guns, mostly hand-pistols rather than muskets, but it’s refreshing considering how many later films eschew gunpowder for pure swordporn. There’s none of the slow attention to detail with powder etc. that we get in the BBC 2014 version, but it’s better than nothing.

In the returning-to-the-Palace sequence, D’Artagnan climbs a wall. Gene Kelly should always wear those trousers and floppy boots. Its’ a good look on him. Even if I keep forgetting he’s not actually the Dancing Cavalier…

Seriously, one dance number, would it have killed you?

Though him trapezing his way from the bridge to the roof and almost rolling off it, light on his feet like a cat pretending he totally didn’t do that – that was pretty awesome.

And when he comes in the window to Constance, he brings half the curtains down with him.

Queen Angela Lansbury is wearing a white fleur-de-lis gown which is extremely lovely, and she completely pwns Not-Cardinal Richelieu in the revelation scene.

I also like the detail that she didn’t “have time” to have the studs made wearable, because they’re not brooches but a box full of shiny rocks. What was she supposed to do, balance them on her nose?

Oh, and when D’Artagnan is starstruck that “I kissed the Queen’s hand” after she thanks him, I do like Constance’s slightly acid “have you no higher ambitions?” I was wrong before, she has two funny bits.

To my surprise, the movie isn’t actually over at this point – instead, Constance is kidnapped. And when D’Artagnan confronts the Not-Cardinal about it – this is the best bit, I can barely type it I’m so excited – RICHELIEU IS STROKING A CAT.

Seriously. He has a cat on his lap. Is this the first filmic example of a villain stroking a cat while explaining his evil plan? Is it???

Because we have already established that Not-Cardinal Vincent Price is not subtle, he offers D’Artagnan Milady on a plate, as part of his proposed salary package for being a Lieutenant in the Guards. This version of Richelieu really, really wants to headhunt D’Artagnan.

Later, D’Artagnan is shirtless in bed when the Three Musketeers turn up. I feel I should mention this because it is the earliest example I have seen of the long and honourable cinematic tradition of D’Artagnan being shirtless. He updates them on the situation and they tease him about spending time with the mysterious Countess De Winter (“Has anyone ever met her?” muses Athos. Ha, dude, you have no idea why that’s funny but later in the movie you’re going to – no, you probably still won’t find it funny) while Constance is kidnapped. He claims, however, that his time with Milady has only been spent in polite conversation.

Once they find out he’s also been flirting with Milady’s maid, they tease him even harder. And fair enough, too.

I’m quite delighted by this Kitty, who shows a bit of backbone (or at least sarcasm) when she huffs to D’Artagnan about him not being remotely interested in her. And then my Musketeer fangirl radar is pinged so hard when I realise that they are actually doing the whole Marquis/Count De Wardes “All Cats are Grey in the Dark” chapter, in which D’Artagnan seduces Milady while pretending to be someone else. (Yes, he basically double dates her as De Wardes and himself)

He even wears the hot pink gloves.

Athos and D’Artagnan fight furiously when they discover Milady’s true identity, which is a little disappointing (don’t sink my ship, MGM, Athos/D’Artagnan platonic friendship is my OTP), but I do love the scene that follows, in which Aramis helps D’Artagnan write a mean breakup note to Milady on behalf of De Wardes, so he can then go and seduce her for a second time, as himself. Nice to know Aramis is contributing something to the story.

D’Artagnan’s and Milady’s boudoir outfits match, in scarlet and gold. Now, that’s planning.

I’m so impressed that they’re using all the screwball comedy aspects of the book which are so often left out of the film adaptations – it’s like Dumas meant this story to be a Gene Kelly/Lana Turner vehicle.

Seriously, though. Where are the songs?

Hilariously, D’Artagnan actually confesses to the whole De Wardes farce, possibly because he’s a bit shocked she hasn’t worked out he’s the same dude. This revelation turns Milady homicidal, and gives him an excuse to pull her sleeve down and check out the fleur-de-lis brand that Athos warned him about. Then, finally, sword fighting as he makes his escape.

Worth noting that at no point did he try to extract any information about Constance from her at all, which suggests that he has forgotten the point of the exercise. BAD ESPIONAGE THAT D’ARTAGNAN.

His boys come to the rescue, and he even gets a smile from Athos, which means they are BFFs again, yes?

Somehow D’Artagnan finds Constance despite his abominable spy skills, thanks to the Queen (so presumably could have found her without all that elaborate Milady shagging?) and then secretly marries her, which is a new twist on the story! Constance is sent to Buckingham for safekeeping which is… odd considering that England and France are at war.

Then there’s a war montage. I’m not even kidding, they’re squeezing EVERYTHING into this movie. Richard Lester with your lazybones telling it over two separate films? MGM thumbs its nose at you.

Before we get to the climactic end they also fit in:

1. The Musketeers eavesdropping on Milady and the Cardinal in a tavern

2. The plot to kill Buckingham

3. The carte blanche signed by Cardinal Richelieu

4. A bunch more cute Milady frocks

5. Confrontation between Athos & Milady in which he calls her Charlotte (she calls him Robert, what the actual hell?) and kisses her senseless until she makes the mistake of trying to kill him with his own sword. Then he gets cranky.

6. Planchet vs. Milady as an intelligence test for the Duke of Buckingham

7. Buckingham’s bright idea to make Constance Milady’s jailer on the grounds that she can’t be seduced like a fella can.

8. Even D’Artagnan can spot the flaw in this plan, which is that seduction is not the only weapon in Milady’s arsenal.

9. Athos proves his friendship when they both risk being charged for desertion by hopping a boat to England. The side benefit of this is that Athos wears a silly metal hat the whole way there. You know how I feel about Musketeers in hats.

10. A killer (literally) speech from Milady while wearing a surprisingly lace-free men’s dressing gown.

11. Psychological warfare between Milady and Constance, in which the good girl makes a surprising turn to the dark side.

12. The inevitable tragic consequences, which my nine-year-old looked forward to with UNNATURAL GLEE. What have I raised?

13. Surprisingly gruesome and yet subtle interpretation of the final fates of Constance, Felton, Buckingham and Milady. Blood-stained fingers, you say?

14. A return to Athos’ home estate for the final reckoning.

With all this plot jam-packed into the story, it’s hard not to notice that it’s not a Three Musketeers movie any more – Aramis and Porthos have been all but forgotten as the Athos-D’Artagnan bromance is solidified through the bonding experience of dealing with Milady and, as a secondary character, Athos’ angst.

Milady’s final outfit as she takes the long walk to her execution, includes a bright purple veil and scarf arrangement over an aqua gown, a combination which would not look out of place on Olivia De Havilland’s Maid Marian, nor any of the Golden Girls. None of this humble white shift bullshit that other movies have to offer. Those bloodstains are going to clash!

Elements of this scene were obviously hugely influential in the later Richard Lester take on Milady’s execution, and I’ll admit that I’m a lot less impressed by Faye Dunaway’s Milady now that I know how much she was borrowing the interpretation that Lana Turner brings to the party here.

Lana Turner is a goddess, basically. Accept no substitution.

Aramis and Porthos are miraculously there in silhouette after this, pretending they have been with Athos and D’Artagnan the whole time, and not sloping off to flirt with widows in churches or whatever instead.

AND THE MOVIE STILL ISN’T OVER. This movie. I can’t believe they put all the book in it, and it’s not even squeaking at the seams.

One more big fight, of the Jets vs. The Sharks Musketeers vs Red Guard. All the tricks are pulled out, because our boys want to impress us, so there’s sliding over bars, cutting down chandeliers, hanging people on hooks, and defenestration.

It all ends in a court intrigue in which Mummy and Daddy fight in front of the children the King and the Cardinal squabble in open court over who holds the power in the country.

And then – there’s the thing with the ending which is just.

I can’t even.

See, the sad thing about The Three Musketeers, the part that’s genuinely upsetting is that it’s not the beginning of the story so much as the middle of the story, and we find out both through epilogue and later through sequels that the Four Best Friends Ever only had a handful of years together before Porthos and Aramis slipped off to their respective retirement plans (rich widow over here, religious service over there) and while Athos and D’Artagnan serve together a while longer before Athos peels off to his own post-Musketeer life plan as an aristocrat, the writing is already on the wall: it’s D’Artagnan who will become the career Musketeer, sticking around for decades, while his friends leave him.

But they still have some time, at the end of the first book. It’s not done yet. So the fact that this movie, which has got so many details genuinely right, which fitted so much of the damned plot into a single narrative, now turns around and kicks the so-called “Inseparables” off to their retirement plans IMMEDIATELY, and presents this as some kind of happy ending just because the Not-Cardinal knows when he’s beat, that’s…

I need to take a moment.

It might be time for me to rewatch the BBC Musketeers again, you guys. THEIR EPIC FRIENDSHIP WILL NEVER END.

This Musketeer Media Monday post is brought to you by the paid sponsors of Musketeer Space, all 50+ 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)

ROBOTECH REWATCH 29 – Azonia is a Sex Kitten Now

Robotech will be rewatched after these messages.

They’re using the word ‘protoculture’ a lot these days. Anyone would think that’s going to turn out to be important. Stay tuned.

This is just embarrassing for everyone, Azonia.

31 – Khyron’s Revenge

The Earth Forces have scored themselves a Robotech Factory, which means they should be able to build themselves a bunch of Battlepods, plus they have an excuse to talk about protoculture around the protoculture water cooler when not making things out of protoculture because protoculture.

Sadly the factory was damaged in the fight, so that was a slight waste of everyone’s time.

Turns out the Robotech Masters, light years away, have co-workers to argue with. These co-workers are also a matching trio, with different shades of hair, and as my daughter points out, they look a bit like David Bowie (AKA androgynous and dressed like glam rockers). They still aren’t totally relevant to the main plot, but maybe someday.

Back on Earth, Rick is called to deal with a disturbance at New Detroit City, where they find rebel Zentraedi stealing a protoculture chamber – i.e. a sizing chamber, the essential tool that Khyron needs to keep his people happy, and whatever size they like.

Rick prevents the theft with a side order of judginess at their poor life choices.

Azonia and Khyron chew out the officer who failed to prevent the theft. Weirdly, close contact with Khyron has turned her into a flirtatious sex kitten, which he finds vaguely embarrassing (you’re not the only one, Khyron) and is serving as his second-in-command despite the fact that I’m pretty sure she outranked him before.

Kyle is up to his old tricks, picking fights with the military (whoa, imagine if Khyron and Kyle teamed up – MIND BLOWN). When Rick tries to secure the protoculture chamber, Kyle and the mayor of New Detroit almost start a riot over the right of Zentraedi to change size whenever they want.

Minmei, watching from a car, daydreams about Rick and is embarrassed by Kyle.

Rick has to concede to leaving the protoculture chamber left behind in the city, which everyone but Kyle thinks is a pretty bad idea. Even the mayor is starting to have doubts about the safety of the issue. Minmei is cross at Kyle for humiliating Rick. Kyle holds true to his beliefs, which are that he is right about everything.

It takes less than a day before the rebel Zentraedi come back to shoot up the city and take the chamber.

After Rick gives his report to Gloval, who commends him for his tactful handling of the situation (even Gloval knows that Kyle is a dick and there’s only so much you can accomplish when he’s around), Exedore presents a report of his own to a core group of all our military-serving main characters. He and Gloval explain that the Zentraedi were created by the Robotech Masters as a perfect police force, which got out of hand.

As New Detroit City is taken apart, Kyle and Minmei huddle in a doorway and he thinks ‘what have I done?’

Ms9: Something absolutely idiotic.

To everyone’s surprise, Exedore’s theory is now that the Zentraedi and humans are not the same race at all – the similarity is a coincidence. The Zentraedi were created as toys of destruction by protoculture, genetically programmed for fighting and to be devoid of love.

I’m starting to suspect that protoculture is not actually a metaphor.

Rick and Lisa discuss this later in front of a sunset, and she suggests that no matter what everyone says, the Zentraedi and humans have a LOT in common.

Word comes about the attack on New Detroit and funnily enough, Rick flips out and blames himself.

In the wreckage of the city, Kyle desperately tries to hotwire a car while Minmei frets about how she didn’t stand up for Rick during their fight. Because of course, all this is her fault?

Khyron’s army, meanwhile, grows larger in all senses of the word. Big is better, baby.

Rick reaches the destroyed city, just as Kyle gets the car going. Minmei looks sadly out of the window while Kyle speeds them away, and Rick chases the car like a hopeless puppy.

Episode 32 – Broken Heart

Well, that sounds like it’s going to be a cheerful episode.

Minmei is giving a concert with her most recent song off the I Miss Rick album. Khyron’s battlepods attack, and for some reason no one has security set up specifically to deal with this, despite the fact that Zentraedi have been attacking her concerts since she was sixteen.

Khryon himself seizes hold of Minmei and Kyle, and only doesn’t squish them straight away because some of his own men are quite firm that nothing should happen to Minmei.

When Khyron gets in touch with Gloval and his men about the kidnapping, everyone freaks out because Minmei is, you know, THEIR SYMBOL OF EVERYTHING. Maybe they should have had a permanent protection detail on her, huh?

Azonia plays with Kyle like he’s a bendy Ken doll. Khyron is demanding the SDF1 in return for the hostages. His endgame, of course, is for them to get off this stinking planet full of human cooties.

Later, while teasing the prisoners, Khyron suggests that Minmei performs for them, which is a miscalculation because she kicks it up a notch with To Be In Love and the whole room full of Zentraedi soldiers have emotional meltdowns.

Khyron throws a hissy fit and accidentally squishes her in his massive hand.

Lisa has to break it to Rick that Minmei has been kidnapped and to her annoyance, once he gets over being upset, he’s sort of nostalgic and happy about getting to rescue his girl again.

Understandably, Lisa is pretty pissed off at him about his attitude.

“I’m afraid you’ll lose your objectivity.”



Rick lands so they can have their domestic in person. He admits he still loves Minmei but came to terms with never being with her a long time ago. That doesn’t make Lisa feel better.

In the Zentraedi rebel camp, Minmei and Kyle are in a cage built from adorable bendy forks. The bad guys are getting tanked, with Azonia in particular enjoying this magical human elixir called booze.

Kyle hurls abuse at the Zentraedi and Khyron responds by snogging Azonia to ‘demonstrate’ about how the Zentraedi have adapted. She is far more into it than he is. The combination of wine and occasional snogging has turned Azonia into, basically, a brainless moll who stands by her man and doesn’t have much else to offer the story. I find this distressing.

Meanwhile, Operation Starsaver (yes really) commences, with Rick Hunter front and centre.

Lisa’s codename is Pelican Mother. You all needed to know that.

Rick and Minmei both think it’s adorable that he rescues her. They’re so into this, because it’s the only aspect of their relationship that has ever made sense to them.

Kyle and Lisa end up having a barney on the ground afterwards, because they both have some frustrations to work out. He howls about the way Rick blasted his way in, and she defends Rick on the grounds that, you know, he got the job done.

Meanwhile the star-cross’d soppypants couple that is Rick and Minmei end up hurling themselves at each other in slow motion while Kyle and Lisa watch, open-mouthed.

Hilariously, the battle isn’t actually even over yet, but everything stopped for dramah. Khyron and Azonia flee the scene.

Lisa then goes to tap Rick on the shoulder and politely give him his next orders to pursue the Bonnie and Clyde of alien warjinks with SURPRISING RESTRAINT.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything, Captain, but Khyron is on the run and I want you to go after him.”

Okay, she let herself sound slightly sarcastic, but considering she’s his commanding officer and totally in love with him, I don’t think a little sarcasm is completely out of order.

Rick throws a hissy fit about Lisa getting in the way of his happy Minmei lovesnuggles, but eventually agrees to do his job. When he flies away, Minmei panics and chases after his plane, while Lisa attempts to stop her for safety reasons. If nothing else, Lisa is (mostly) a damned professional and isn’t going to let the symbol of human survival die in a horrible workplace accident to the tune of ‘My Boyfriend’s a Pilot.’

Everyone is sad.

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, and especially to my paid patrons. You can support Musketeer Space at Patreon.

Friday Links is Kissing Under the Mistletoe

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these! That means some of the links aren’t terribly recent but they are all things that caught my attention.

No Award has put up their Holiday Gift Giving Guide. It involves sharks, as well as a great range of mostly Australian themed awesomeness.

The Female Factory has just been released! This boutique collection by Angela Slatter and Lisa Hannett is Vol 11 of the epic Twelve Planets series.

A great essay at the Mary Sue on why the New 52 reboot of Wonder Woman’s origin is not the one that should be used for the DC Movieverse.

Daniel José Older at the Guardian: Move over HP Lovecraft, fantasy writers of colour are coming through

Delia Sherman on the wonderful book cover art of Kathleen Jennings.

An adorable No Award post on the epic feud as tweeted by Banjo Patterson (bpattz) and Henry Lawson. It’s possibly not entirely historically accurate.

australia: hey banjo we need a new poem to reflect burgeoning Australian values

bpattz: here i wrote a thing about horse thieves

australia: that’s

that’s not really what we meant

On Tor.com: How Sleeping Beauty is Accidentally the Most Feminist Disney Film of all Time (and why Tansy should get around to watching Maleficent)

Musketeer Space Part 30 – In the Cellar of the Gilded Lily

Happy Musketeer Day!

I’ve been home sick with grumpy children for the last several days, which is a whole lot of no fun. But still feeling better than Athos, so there’s that.

Also a big shout out to the Web Fiction Guide, which has listed Musketeer Space. This site is a great way to find free original fiction, if you’ve developed a taste for serials. While I’m at it, I really appreciate Regan Wolfrom’s regular Free Fiction links pages at SF Signal which have brought me a bunch of new readers. Hi, new readers!

Another public service announcement: Don’t drink like Athos. Athos’ liver is not your liver. No one knows why he is still alive.

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 29

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE: All Dana D’Artagnan wants to do is rescue her three Musketeer pilot friends and take them home to Paris Satellite – but a drunken Athos is proving hard to budge. They need to get him off Valour quickly, because he and that planet are no good for each other.

NOW READ ON!

Chapter 30 – In the Cellar of the Gilded Lily

“You’re wearing my jacket,” Athos observed, as Dana picked slivers of glass out of his trembling hand in the lantern light.

They had to get out of this cellar. Athos had drunk enough of the Gilded Lily’s printstock of wine and brandy that he was in danger of poisoning himself. Dana felt half-poisoned herself, even if the bottle they had shared most recently was of exceptional quality.

Right now, she was trying to make sure he did not bleed too badly.

“Gauze strips in the inner pocket,” Athos added, which was lucid of him. “Why are you wearing my clothes, D’Artagnan?”

Chances were high he would never remember this conversation. “I missed my friends. Shut up.”

He laughed softly in the near darkness.

“I hate you,” she told him.

“As is only right and proper.”

Dana made a huffing sound. “You really are the king of self pity, aren’t you?”

“I wasn’t the one complaining that the Cardinal’s mysterious secret agent and/or political advisor kidnapped my boyfriend before I got a chance to screw him.”

“That is not how I phrased it at all,” she said, smacking a gauze strip over Athos’ cut much harder than necessary.

“Ow.”

“Time to sober you up.” She brought out her trump card, a Sobriety patch she had tucked into one of the many useful pockets in this jacket before setting out on this second trip to Valour.

Athos’ eyes widened as he saw it. “Fuck no. I’ve been working on this bender for most of the week, D’Artagnan. You wouldn’t be so cruel.”

“Come outside with me now, and I won’t sober you up until we’re off this planet. This is my final offer.” Time to stop getting distracted by his tragic past. Removing him from this cellar had to be her priority.

Athos gave her a searching look. “Open another bottle and I’ll tell you the worst story you’ve ever heard.”

Curiosity leaped in her stomach again, but Dana refused to give into temptation. “Athos, another bottle might actually kill you.”

“Half a bottle. I’ll share.”

“Half a bottle might kill me.”

His blue eyes were so very intense in the dim light. “I told you that I murdered the man I loved, and you really don’t want any more details?”

“Wine, not brandy,” Dana whispered.

Athos reached out without even looking, his hand closing around the neck of a new bottle. “I’m sure the landlord won’t mind.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s going to call the local militia if we don’t pay your tab,” Dana replied, but she did not stop him unsealing the bottle. “Start talking, or I’ll break that one too.”

Athos took a long, steady swallow and wiped his wet mouth with his unbandaged hand. “There was a count who lived on the far side of this continent, who fell in love,” he said. “Which was the first stupid thing. But they were young, and stupidity was his elemental right. They were students together at the university, and they were going to change the world.”

“Students of what?” Dana asked. She took the bottle off him and took a mouthful. It mixed badly with the brandy already sloshing around in her stomach.

“Philosophy. Politics. If you could get a degree in being wide-eyed and idealistic, they would have signed up without a second thought. The count was a New Aristocrat through and through – he wasn’t supposed to have a purpose beyond keeping his lands from burning down around him, and solving the disputes of his province. That had been the Fleet’s excuse for not allowing him to sign up for service during the War against the Sun-kissed, anyway. An excuse he had accepted all too readily.”

“But now he wanted more,” Dana prodded.

“Because love,” said Athos. That word had never been spoken with such venom in the history of the solar system.

“I’m sensing this story doesn’t end well.”

“Oh, you think?” He paused for a long time, his breaths slow and steady. “The second stupid thing the count did was to marry his young man when they left university. They were on fire together, determined to use the power and privilege of the New Aristocracy for something good, for a change. The war was over, and the Valour government had played lapdog to the Crown during the conflict, in exchange for keeping their brightest and best out of the war.” His head drooped for a moment, and Dana thought for a moment he had nodded off. “Also, there was poetry.”

Dana almost laughed at the sheepish, despairing way Athos said that. He needs to tell someone, she insisted at the spark of guilt that she was taking advantage of his drunken state. “Poetry,” she repeated.

“I believe it’s traditional, in love affairs,” Athos said, sounding so pompous that it was all too believable that he had once been a baby-faced, politically charged count who ruled over a province, and not a drunken Musketeer who couldn’t fly his ship without chemical assistance.

“Poetry, philosophy, politics… and love,” Dana said lightly. “A heady cocktail.”

Athos nodded grimly. “Right up to the point that the count’s husband fell ill, a year into their marriage. He contracted a fever that no medi-patch could alter. A terrible, burning fever that lasted for three days and nights. During that time, he spoke of – secrets, awful secrets. And that was how the count learned that his husband was a fraud. He had spent all that time thinking himself deliriously happy, but here was an actual delirium, and the truth.”

“What truth?” Dana whispered.

“He was so fucking beautiful,” Athos said in a ragged voice. “That was the worst of it. Pale skin, like moonlight. That hair. And – I never saw how false he was until it was all too late.”

Athos tipped the bottle up to his mouth and Dana let him take a swallow before she reclaimed it for herself. “Why was it too late?”

He matched her question with one of his own. “What do you know about the Sun-kissed?”

This hardly seemed the time for a history lesson, but she went along with it. “They’re ruthless. They are alien. They hide in plain sight, because…” The words faded on her tongue. Dana stared at her friend in horror, suddenly realising how this story fit together with the other story, the one he had told her when they were crashing and burning. “No.”

“They hide in plain sight because they can make themselves look like us,” Athos agreed through gritted teeth. “They can make themselves look like any fucking thing they want. But after three days of fever, of genuine illness, he couldn’t hold on to the transformation any longer. So the count’s beautiful husband rolled over in the sheets and his skin turned dark red like he was sunburned, and the war tattoos spilled across his back, line by line, and it turned out that it didn’t matter that we thought the war was over and that Valour had made it through untouched. The Sun-kissed were still among us, hiding spies in plain sight. Placing them near people they thought could be of use.”

He didn’t sound like Athos any more. He was bitter and tired, and Dana wanted to take it all the hurt away from him. She had not imagined something as bad as this. She was sick at the thought of it – of sharing a bed with an alien and an enemy and never knowing until it was too late. Of being deceived so vilely. But she could guess how the story ended. Athos had already told her that part.

“The count – executed his husband personally?” she whispered. There was only one way to ensure that a Sun-kissed was dead, she knew from school. She had been twelve years old when the war ended, and it had all seemed so theoretical. You take their head, and you burn the remains.

“It was his duty,” said Athos, closing his eyes and leaning back against the nearest barrel. “Damn,” he added. “That’s a good wine, that one. Too drunk to do it justice. We should take a bottle or two when we leave.”

Porthos had been waiting outside the tavern for over an hour, with Aramis at her side. Half an hour ago, Grimaud emerged into the late afternoon sunshine with damp hair and sonic-scrubbed clothes. Aramis made a token payment towards the landlord’s exorbitant bill with the last of the credit they had and pledged Amiral Treville to cover the rest. After a while, they sent Grimaud back to the Hoyden and the Morningstar with Bonnie and Planchet, to file the flight plans and ready the ships for the long trip home.

Still, they waited.

“We should go in,” said Porthos, bouncing impatiently on the soles of her boots.

“Give them a little longer,” said Aramis. “We don’t know what state he’s in.” They had some idea, based on Grimaud’s brief and unsatisfying report, but they didn’t know if interrupting would make things better or worse.

“That’s why we should get in there. Dana’s just a kid, she doesn’t know what she’s up against.” Porthos had seen Athos at his ordinary worst a hundred times or more, but his absolute rock bottom was something she had only glimpsed twice, and had hoped to never see again.

Aramis squeezed Porthos’ shoulder. “She’s not that young. And I think it’s good for him, to have someone other than you and me to pick him out of the gutter from time to time. With Dana – he might manage to summon some pride.”

Porthos gave her a filthy look. “That’s not fair on either of them. She looks at him like he hangs the moon, like he’s her hero…”

“And today she gets to find out that he’s human,” Aramis said serenely. “It will be good for both of them.”

“I hate when you’re all spiritually calm,” Porthos muttered.

Aramis gave her a gentle hug. “Isn’t it nice, though? Just a little. To share him with someone else.”

“He’s not a food parcel.”

“I didn’t say he was. But my shoulders are feeling a little lighter.”

“Probably the love letter burning a hole in your pocket.”

“Could be,” Aramis smirked.

The door to the Gilded Lily opened. Athos walked out, blinking in the light of the sun. It came in at a particularly piercing angle, just before descending into the mountains beyond Amiens.

Athos looked rough, his beard back to the long, untended horror it had been before Aramis last got her hands on him with a sonar clipper. He had lost some weight in the last week, probably from drinking too many meals, and he was unsteady on his feet.

He carried Dana slung over his shoulder like a dead weight. “Kid can’t hold her drink,” he muttered as he approached them.

Aramis wanted to hug him, but she feared any sudden movements would pitch them all on to the historically authentic cobblestones at their feet. “Credit’s covered,” she informed him. “Grimaud gave the landlord an approximation of the damage in the cellar.”

“Let’s get moving before he discovers how much she was playing it down,” said Athos.

The three of them turned and walked down the street together, falling into step as they always did.

“Can I claim a favour?” Athos asked after a long moment.

“Try us,” said Porthos.

“Wait until we’re in orbit before you attack me with that Sobriety patch D’Artagnan has in her pocket. I don’t want to be sober on this fucking planet.”

Aramis and Porthos exchanged a glance.

“Fine,” said Porthos finally. “But if you throw up in my beautiful ship, I will toss you out an airlock.”

Athos winced as they turned a corner and that setting sun pierced his vision again. “Didn’t know being thrown out an airlock was on the table. I think that’s my preferred option.”

Aramis squeezed his arm. “Do you want us to get what’s left the Parry Riposte out of hock before we go?”

Athos shifted slightly, preventing Dana from sliding off his shoulder. The kid moaned a little as his arm bumped against her abdomen. “No. Sometimes you have to leave things behind and start over.”

Porthos bumped against his other side – the side holding Dana – with her hip. “Sounds like good advice, Athos. Maybe you should take it some day.”

“Bite me, Porthos.”

Without having to even say it aloud, the Musketeers and Dana allowed the engies to personally fly the Hoyden and the Morningstar back to Paris. Planchet was sent on the Morningstar to practice astronavigation with Bazin, and Bonnie took the helm and harness of the Hoyden with Grimaud snoozing in the jumpseat beside her.

Dana woke up four hours out of Meung Station, to find herself pressed against the wall in Porthos’ bunk, with a Sobriety patch burning a perfect triangle into her right shoulder. Aramis sat beside Dana, her long legs tangling with those of Athos, who was propped up comfortably against the other end of the bunk reading from a tablet, with Porthos tucked under his arm.

“I can’t believe we all fit in one bed,” Dana murmured as she yawned herself awake. Her own feet were pressed against Porthos’ knees, she realised.

Aramis elbowed her. “Economy of space is the most important skill we have as a species,” she said, quoting a long-ago prophet who had taken their people to the stars.

“Also, this bunk is larger than regulation,” added Athos.

“I like to be comfortable,” said Porthos defensively.

“No complaints here,” he said with a quirk of his mouth, and head-butted her gently. In response, she poked him in the ribs with a finger.

Dana pulled herself up into a sitting position, with the wall behind her. “This is nice,” she said, and pressed her lips together to stop herself saying anything else.

For a while there, she had not been sure that they would all be together again. She wanted to grin stupidly at all three of them, but she settled for letting her head fall on to Aramis’ shoulder so she could doze again.

When Dana awoke the next time, Athos and Aramis were no longer there. Porthos sprawled out at the other end of the bunk, watching what sounded like a cinquefoil game on the same tablet Athos had been reading from earlier.

“They’re checking on Grimaud’s injuries,” Porthos yawned, before Dana could give any indication she was awake. “Or rather, Aramis is checking on her injuries, and Athos is being extra sarcastic so that he can pretend he’s not fussing over her like a mother hen.”

Dana grinned at that. “He can be protective.”

“Oh, honey, you have no idea.” Porthos muted her game, laying the tablet aside. “It was bad down there, huh?”

She meant the cellar, of course.

Dana frowned. “I’ve never seen him like that,” she confessed.

“Not many do.”

“He seemed so lost. Is he that unhappy all the time?”

“Pretty much,” Porthos sighed. “He hides it well. A little too well, most days.” She flicked a curious expression at Dana. “You look like you’re burning to ask more questions. I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

“No questions,” Dana muttered, looking away. She had enough of Athos’ secrets buzzing around in her mind, she didn’t need more of them.

“Oh,” Porthos breathed. “Well, that’s new.”

Dana scowled. “What are you talking about?”

“He told you, didn’t he. About his husband.”

That earned a startled glance from Dana. “What?” She double-checked that the door to the cockpit was firmly closed. “He said you didn’t know,” she added in a low whisper.

Porthos looked a little guilty, and sad. “I found out on a very bad day,” she said after a moment. “He doesn’t remember telling me. Aramis knows too, the shape of it at least.”

Dana didn’t know what to think. It had seemed ridiculous that Athos had spilled his secrets to her, things he had never told his two best friends. She had assumed it was because she was new, and he didn’t feel he had to keep up appearances around her. Or maybe he had just been too blind drunk to think it through rationally.

If they did know, both of them, it was a relief. She was so not cut out to be anyone’s solo support person, least of all the complex bag of angry space weapons that was Athos’s inner turmoil.

“What do you know?” she asked finally. She wasn’t going to assume that Athos’ secrets were fair game just because Porthos had an excellent poker face.

Porthos tilted her head at Dana, regarding her. “I know his husband is dead,” she said softly. “There are times when he’s okay, and times that he’s so eaten up by it that he sabotages pretty much everything good in his life.”

Dana nodded at that, thinking of the business with the nexus. Athos was a brilliant pilot, and he didn’t trust himself even with that. “Except you,” she said after a moment. “You and Aramis. Having you as friends, it’s the best thing that he has.”

Porthos laughed at that, not an overly cheerful laugh, but deep and honest. “Oh believe me, he’s sabotaged us plenty of times. We won’t let him go easily, though.” She leaned in and scritched Dana’s short buzz of hair on her scalp, as if she was a puppy dog. “If you know as much as I do, about the husband and the deep dark misery and all that, I’m impressed.”

“It’s not -” Dana said awkwardly, because she knew more, a lot more than Porthos was saying. It shocked her all over again that she was the one Athos had chosen to trust. Unless Porthos was playing her cards very close to her chest, she did not in fact know what kind of monster Athos’ husband had turned out to be, nor that he was the one who had executed him. “I was just there when he needed to talk,” she muttered.

“Ha,” said Porthos. “Athos has been needing to talk as long as I’ve known him, but he doesn’t let himself, not about things that matter. If he told you his secrets today, that’s important, Dana. Hold on to that.”

The moment was lost as Athos’ voice called harshly through the doorway. “D’Artagnan, Porthos, get in here now!”

For a moment, Dana was embarrassed. Did he realise they had been gossiping about him? As she opened the door and stepped into the cockpit, however, all thoughts of Athos and his angsty past bled away faster than she could breathe.

Aramis, closest to the doorway, reached out and caught Dana’s hand, squeezing it gently between her own. Dana had no idea why, at first.

Everyone, even Bonnie who had slipped the Hoyden into autopilot, stood watching the enlarged media screen on the inside of the hatchway. It was the beginning of a press conference, by the look of it – the Regent stood behind a podium, speaking in her clear, confident voice. In the background, Dana could see Prince Alek and the Cardinal, standing much closer together than usual, grave and united.

“These recent attacks on citizens of the solar system make it clear that the alien race known to us as the Sun-kissed have no intention of meeting our overtures of peaceful negotiation with anything other than contempt,” said the Regent, well aware that her words would be recorded and rebroadcast over and over in the years to come. She was speaking history, a kind of history they had hoped never to repeat.

“When all other options have failed, there is only one clear path remaining. As of today, our Solar System is at war with the Sun-kissed. Let the God of All have mercy on their souls, for we have no mercy left for them. Not this time.”

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 a special Yuletide prequel story to be released in December. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock ART.

ROBOTECH REWATCH 28: Love is a Weapon (featuring: Babies are Adorable)

Robotech will be Rewatched After These Messages

A couple of episodes ago, I mentioned that I remembered the novelisation of Robotech by Jack McKinney as adding a sexual aspect to Rick and Lisa’s relationship during this time – and no, I wasn’t imagining it, thanks Chip for confirming that I was right! (of course I could have gone and just taken the books off the shelf but you know, that requires effort)

Unfortunately, if you do take the reading that Rick and Lisa are currently sleeping together but not actually talking, dating and he’s still acting all lovesick about Minmei then.. yeah, it makes him look like even more of a jerk than usual and her look like a complete doormat. So possibly not recommended.

Episode 30 – Viva Miriya

So what have Max and Miriya been up to apart from having their adorable baby? Turns out they’re both still working as pilots, in this case on a mission under the command of Breetai.

The mission also includes Lisa, Claudia, Exedore and Rick, who don’t know why they’re here when they arrive.

Breetai, who is still giant-sized, is an awkward but affable host as he welcomes them to his old ship. They still don’t know why they’re here – and it turns out that Breetai has requested not only Max and Miriya, but their baby Dana.

Wonder what the occupational health and safety forms for THAT look like.

Elsewhere, in another galaxy, the Robotech Masters are busy trying to synthetically recreate the body of their lost hero, Zor. It’s not going well. It’s worth noting that the Robotech Masters are an identical trio of men, who wear colour coded collars to keep track of which of them is which.

The human-Zentraedi mission has turned surprisingly domestic, with everyone cooing over the baby. Lisa tries to get Rick to speak to her alone in her room, but accidentally pulls rank on him (she’s the Captain) when he hesitates. Claudia ships it.

Rick freaks out, not realising that this a booty call. He thinks he’s in trouble, or that Lisa wants to complain about Minmei. To be fair, that does characterise the majority of their conversations so far.

Lisa tries to have a relationship talk with Rick only to discover that he is the most clueless person in the universe and does not realise they are actually in a relationship. It doesn’t go well and eventually she takes pity on him and lets him flee.

So let’s talk about the mission itself. It turns out that it’s all about trying to reclaim a Robotech factory run by old school angry war Zentraedi. Lisa knows how this sort of thing is supposed to go – they play them some Minmei music, they fall apart, and it’s all good, right?

But Breetai wants some strategic kissing too, as part of the attack and obviously he assumes Rick and Lisa are up for that, because how is this not an effective and appropriate use of senior military officers?

Seriously. Do they not have a porn tape they could play instead?

Lisa doesn’t admit to Rick that this is what’s going on until it’s too late for him to back out – and he is deeply unwilling about the whole thing. Consent issues much? No one else seems to object that he is once again (this is not the first time) being directly ordered to kiss his superior officer against his express wishes.

Seriously. This mission is a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen. SO MANY FORMS.

On the other hand, if this mission turned out to be entirely fake because Uncle Breetai also ships Rick/Lisa and either has a bet riding on them hooking up, or just wants them to get their act together, I would not be surprised.

Minmei’s music is blasted, weapon style, into the Robotech factory. Rick and Lisa kiss, causing ‘ewwwwww WTF’ to come from the poor Zentraedi – it’s amazing any of them end up with remotely healthy attitudes towards sex or romance with this kind of shock inflicted on them in the field. (actually that explains a LOT about the Khyron/Azonia relationship_

Two Micronian ships, piloted by Max and Miriya, land in the Robotech Factory at gunpoint. Miriya reveals herself and introduces Max as her mate.

“Show him the baby, Miriya.”

Miriya presents baby Dana and explains the birds and the bees, which freaks the Zentraedi out so much that they surrender. Love, she explains, is the secret of Protoculture.

“Observe the power of Protoculture, the Power of love.”

Claudia jokes that she doesn’t know why they all reacted like that – baby Dana is cute! Can we… maybe talk about how weird it is to be taking a baby directly into the line of fire when they could have just recorded a public service announcement or possibly some form of fly on the wall documentary about Life in the Sterling Household?

Rick still looks traumatised about the whole kissing thing. Whatever you say about Minmei, at least she never forced him to kiss her when he wasn’t into it. I’m beginning to rethink my whole Rick/Lisa ship, which is deeply upsetting to me.

Breetai’s Earth forces take the Robotech factory, and prepare to space fold to move it into orbit around the Earth. It’s a victory for everyone except the counsellors and sexual harassment lawyers, who are going to be having a very busy week.

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, and especially to my paid patrons. You can support Musketeer Space at Patreon.

Musketeer Space Part 29 – The Husband of Athos

It’s Musketeer Day!

I won’t deny I’m excited we’re at this part. The creative use and withholding of backstory is such an important part of the Musketeer story and, you know, it makes me sad when D’Artagnan and the Musketeers are apart from each other.

I kind of feel guilty about how often my characters get stupidly drunk, but it’s kind of impossible to tell the story of the Musketeers – and Athos in particular – without getting a whole lot of booze involved.

Don’t be like Athos, kids. Drink responsibly over the silly season, or you might end up spilling all your tragic secrets in a cellar. This has been a public service announcement.

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 28

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana wants to be a Musketeer pilot, but instead she’s managed to acquire three of them as her new best friends. After losing them all during a mission, she’s trying to collect the set all over again: with Porthos and Aramis back in action, there’s only Athos still to find. Unfortunately he was last seen on a planet he hates, in the wreckage of his crashed spaceship.

NOW READ ON!

Chapter 29 – The Husband of Athos

“And I thought my ship was in bad shape,” Aramis said sadly, looking at the crumpled heap of metal that remained of the Parry, Riposte. Planchet had tracked the salvage code to a shipyard in the city of Amiens, to the north of the lake with which Dana had recently become so intimately acquainted.

“What are you doing?” Dana asked in surprise as Porthos actually climbed up on top of the nearest charging hub, planting her booted feet astride it.

“I’m noting all the drinking establishments that are visible from this yard,” said Porthos, her eyes slowly sweeping the area from her new high vantage point. “He wouldn’t have walked any further than he had to.”

“Grimaud was wounded,” Dana said, feeling that someone had to defend Athos at this point. “I’m sure the first thing Athos did after getting credit for salvage wasn’t to buy a drink.”

Aramis and Porthos simply looked at her.

Dana sighed. “Fine, okay. But what makes you think he’s still nearby, and still drunk? It’s been a week.”

Porthos patted her arm as if she was a child. “It’s not that we’re deliberately thinking the worst of him, Dana. But we know him really, really well.”

“We’d better spread out, take a street each,” said Aramis, cuffing Dana lightly across the back of her head. “I only hope he hasn’t run out of credit. Athos shouldn’t have to deal with this planet sober.”

“Hell,” said Porthos. “If we have to deal with Athos dealing with this planet, I don’t want to be sober.”

Athos being sober was,as it turned out, the last thing they had to worry about. Dana was assigned to the Rue de Souveray, which sounded far grander than the cobbled alley that it turned out to be. The surfaces in this city were cracked and uneven, another aspect of dirtside life that Dana was glad she would never have to get used to.

It was mid afternoon in this time zone, with the sun already starting to lose some of its enthusiasm for the day. There were a couple of bars that were evidently not open yet, catering for the nightlife of Amiens. Dana did find a bakery which turned out to be not much help because they didn’t serve wine, and then went further up the street only to discover that what looked like a promising place was actually a dance club that she knew Athos would rather cut off his arm than enter.

She frowned, staring back down the street. To find Athos in this city, surely she had to think like Athos. And though she didn’t want to admit it, there was something credible to Porthos’ theory. The question was not whether Athos would have bought a drink with the credit he received in exchange for his barely-salvaged wreck of a ship, the question was where he would have chosen to drink.

Dana returned down the sloping street to look more closely at the establishments that were not open. What about that pub down on the corner? It looked shabby and comfortable; the kind of place where people didn’t ask too many questions about who you were and where your credit came from.

More to the point, it shouldn’t be closed. A place like that got half its income from serving hearty lunches and letting customers linger at tables long into the afternoon. The Gilded Lily was scrawled on a sign that swung off an iron hook on the corner of the street.

As Dana watched, two customers actually approached the doors and knocked, bemused at the place being unavailable to them. They shouted some kind of protest someone through a panel in the door, and eventually sloped off, looking unhappy.

Dana pressed her lips together. There was something strange going on.

She headed down again and knocked for herself, peering in through the panel in the door. Was that actual glass set into the antique wood? Fancy. There was nothing else especially glamorous about this place – it looked worn and badly lit. Perfect.

A man with a broom passed in front of the door and made a vague ‘fuck off’ gesture at Dana, then ignored her.

She knocked again, more forcefully.

Finally, the landlord came to the door, holding his broom as if he was about to pull a sword out of it. “Not open!” he grunted through the still-closed door. “Can’t you read?”

Dana cupped her ear, pretending she could not hear him.

He opened the heavy door about four inches. “We’re not bloody open, okay? Not today, not tomorrow at this rate. I’m fucking ruined, and I don’t want…” He paused, staring at Dana’s jacket. “Are you one of them?”

Dana had considered shoving her foot in the door to prevent him from slamming it in her face, but with the size of the landlord and the vibrating anger coming off him, she realised that would be a good way to lose a foot. She backed up from the door. “Am I – one of what?”

“You’re a bloody Musketeer,” snarled the landlord.

Dana squared her shoulders, tired of correcting the world. “Yes, I am,” she lied between her teeth. “I am a bloody Musketeer.”

“Thank Earth and Fire for that.” He reached out and seized her, physically lifting her inside the pub. “Get that sodden, wine-soaked bastard out of my cellar before he destroys everything I have left.”

Ah. A clue. “Wine-soaked bastard?” Dana said innocently.

The landlord shoved at her shoulder. “He’s yours, aye? The maniac with the sword and the woman who looks like a good religious sort but is basically as bad as him?”

Dana could sense that tact was called for here. Tact and subtlety. “Does the wine-soaked bastard have a beard, by any chance?”

The landlord grabbed her around the arms again, propelling her across the floor. “You have to get him out of here. I don’t care any more, I just want him out. I can’t run a business like this. Can’t even sleep because I keep expecting the arsing sot to set fire to my pub in his ravings. Get him out.”

Dana found herself facing a large, barred doorway. “I can do that,” she said, trying not to sound hesitant. She should call in Aramis and Porthos. She knew that. And yet – she was the one who had left Athos on this planet. It was up to her to rescue him.

The landlord wrenched the bar off the door. “You’ll be settling his bill before you leave,” he growled.

“Consider it done,” said Dana confidently, though she wasn’t sure there was enough credit left for that even with the funds she had received from both Treville and Buckingham. Porthos had cost a lot, and Aramis had insisted on leaving a generous donation to the abbey as well as getting the Morningstar out of hock. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Church guards,” the landlord said, and then spat on his own floor. “Never liked letting that sort in, especially in red uniforms and spouting Paris accents. But when they give me orders, I know better than to do otherwise, you know?”

Dana didn’t like the sound of this. “Go on.”

“When your man came in, he was quiet enough – the kind who doesn’t want anything to get between him and his glass. The lady wasn’t any trouble either. But then a couple of them churchies came in, shouting about how they’d caught him – claimed he was a credit fraud, and the governor himself wanted him in custody.”

Dana nodded grimly. It made sense.

“Well, he went fierce, and the lady too – they fought off the guards and killed them right here on the floor, then barricaded themselves in my cellar. I sent word to the governor about it all, expecting him to send some more men to dig the criminals out of my place.”

Dana looked from the door to the landlord. “How long ago was this?”

“Three, four days.”

“And he’s still down there?”

“The governor didn’t know nothing about it,” the landlord stuttered. “Local enforcement took the bodies but no one wanted to claim them – they weren’t churchies at all, turned out, let alone from Paris. The credit fraud they’d been talking about, he was arrested three provinces from here.”

“So Athos – my friend – was innocent,” Dana said darkly. “And you’ve kept him imprisoned down there for days!”

“Imprisoned!” the landlord protested. “I’ve tried to give him his damned freedom. I’ve offered it to him on a silver platter. But he and that engineer lady of his, they refuse to come out even after I told them it wasn’t a trap no more. Tried to shoot me last time I put my head around the door, and ordered me to bar it closed.”

Dana did her best not to smirk. “And uh, he’s all right down there? Does he have access to food and medipatches and -”

The landlord turned a furious face upon her. “Food? He has all my bloody printers. My stores. My wine. And I can’t open up without them. He’s going to ruin me.”

Dana clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m taking him home today.”

“Raving nutter, he is, I reckon. They go funny sometimes, you know. Them who fight in the wars. It’s not good for a person.”

“Open the door,” said Dana, steeling herself for the worst. “I’m going in.”

The landlord obediently took the bar off with a loud creak. “None of your shooting!” he yelled down into the darkness. “Brought a mate of yours, gonna take you home!”

There was a long silence. Then the bright white light of a pearl stunner flashed in the darkness. Dana ducked fast, going down to her knees.

“Don’t think I trust you, little man,” called Athos, his New Aristocrat accent ringing out clearly from beneath them.

The sound of his voice made Dana’s stomach tighten. She felt exactly as she had looking upon Aramis’ face for the first time, back at the Crevecoueur Abbey, and then at Chantilly Station when she saw for herself that Porthos was alive.

It was all going to be okay now.

“Athos,” she yelled down the stairs into the blackness within. “What did we agree about you and pearl stunners? Stick to the sword, and maybe you won’t hurt yourself.”

There was a silence, and a soft choking sound. “Is that D’Artagnan?”

She was glad it was dark down there so that he couldn’t see the stupid smile that broke out across her face. “Are you going to invite me into your creepy little mancave, or what?”

“Come on down,” Athos called out, faking the same cheerfulness that she was. “Mind the stairs in the dark, don’t want you breaking your fool neck. Grimaud took my last med-patch. But no one else, D’Artagnan. I don’t trust anyone else.” His voice trembled a fraction on that last line, and it chilled Dana for a moment. He sounded far from okay.

“Close the door behind me, but don’t bar it,” she said softly to the landlord. “I’ll have him out within the hour and all this will have been like a bad dream.”

“A very expensive bad dream,” muttered the landlord, but he did as she asked.

Dana descended the stairs in the blackness, her hand trailing along the wall to keep her steady. “Have you been in the dark all this time, Athos? Are there no lights down here?”

“Didn’t want to waste candles,” said Athos. A light flared somewhere in the cellar, and she watched his face swim up to her, illuminated by an actual flame in a lantern.

“Kicking it old school,” Dana said, her eyes drawn to what she could see of his face beyond the yellow blaze of lantern light. He looked like shit. “What have you done to yourself?”

She heard a clink of several bottles rattling empty together, and Athos raised a half-full one in an uneven salute. “Gave myself too much time to think.”

A shadow moved in the centre of the cellar and Dana turned towards it. Grimaud moved into the circle of yellow light, throwing a blanket off her own shoulders on to Athos’ lap. “And on that note,” she said, her eyes holding Dana’s for a brief moment. “I’m going for a bath. I presume you can keep him from offing himself for an hour or so? I’ll meet you outside.”

The engie stomped up the stairs and let herself out. “You,” she called sharply to the landlord beyond the door, just before it shut behind her. “Hot water. Now. This is an emergency.”

Dana sank down on her knees beside Athos. She had to move a couple of bottles out of the way to sit down. “Want to tell me what she meant by that?” she asked softly.

“She was joking,” he said, his hand still circling the neck of the bottle. She wanted to take it off him, but even as a wreck like this his reflexes were always better than hers.

“I don’t actually think she was,” Dana sighed. She reached out an arm, giving him a rough hug around the neck. He smelled like sour wine and engine oil. To her surprise, he didn’t shrug her away, but leaned into her neck for a moment, like he was actually willing to take comfort from her touch.

Valour had broken him, then.

“You came back,” Athos sighed, sounding half asleep.

“Someone had to save you from yourself.” She shoved him a little with her hip. “I told you I would. Porthos and Aramis are here, too. We’ve been looking all over. Should I get them in here?”

“No, not yet.” He actually shuddered under her arm.

Dana curled around him, her other hand smoothing over his until the tremble lessened. “Athos, you’re a mess,” she sighed. “What’s wrong? Can you tell me?”

“They don’t know. Never wanted them to know.”

“How is there anything that those two don’t know about you?”

Athos shoved her away, then, putting space between them. He rocked up on his heels, disappearing into the darkness, and then stumbled back with another bottle. Not wine this time. It smelled like some kind of brandy, when he uncapped it. When he staggered down to the floor again, he pushed the lantern between them so Dana was forced to keep her distance. “They don’t know that I’m not worth saving,” he said flatly, and necked the bottle.

Dana resisted the urge to smack the bottle away. At this rate, getting him to drink himself unconscious might be the only way to drag him off this bloody planet.

She considered her options. Porthos and Aramis were nearby, both capable of flying everyone home between them. There was no one else right here in this cellar to tell her that she had to do this sober.

Dana held out a hand for the bottle of brandy. “Give,” she ordered. At least this way she could ensure that he paused between swallows. Athos handed the bottle over to her, and she took a deep swig. It had a smooth heat to it that warmed her all the way down. She couldn’t remember when she had last eaten anything. “Bullshit you’re not worth saving,” she added, and held on to the bottle as long as she could before Athos motioned for it back. “I call double bullshit on that.”

Athos looked defeated; even more so with the bottle cradled back between his hands. “You’ve been running towards the Musketeers for your whole life, D’Artagnan. Arms outstretched. Haven’t you noticed that the rest of us got here by running away from something?”

She let him take a mouthful, then dragged the bottle back for herself. “What makes you so special, Athos? What makes the thing you’re running away from so much more dramatic than everyone else’s demons?”

He made a noise and she thought for one minute he was crying. Then she realised he was laughing and that was actually worse. The Athos she knew smiled from time to time, but apart from the weird manic energy he embraced when there was a fight on, most of those smiles were so small that they were easy to miss if you weren’t looking for them.

Dana didn’t think she had ever heard him laugh before, not properly. She would be quite happy never to hear it ever again.

“I am worse,” he said. “You saw it when the ship came down. You must have seen it too.”

Hair tousled over the back of a neck. Bare feet on soft grass. “The happy memory that made you sad,” said Dana.

“My beloved husband,” said Athos, with an edge of sarcasm hovering around the word ‘beloved.’ “Before I killed him.”

Dana looked at him for a long moment, and then handed him back the bottle of brandy. “You know you don’t get to leave the story there, right?”

He huffed out a long breath, his fingers curling and uncurling around the neck of the bottle. “You’re welcome to stay and drink with me. But you’re not entitled to anything else.”

This was the time to call in reinforcements, to contact Porthos and Aramis and Bonnie and Bazin and Planchet and gang up with them to drag Athos’ sorry drunken carcass out of here. It was amazing Grimaud had lasted as long as she had in this cellar without using the pearl stunner on him and dragging him out by his feet.

But the words ‘my beloved husband’ were still hanging in the air and Dana knew, she knew that once they left this cellar, he would seal himself up again like a barrel and refuse to acknowledge that he had revealed anything of himself.

The mystery that was Athos had been nagging at Dana for a long time, and the revelation that there was a story from his past that even Aramis and Porthos did not know about… that was too intriguing to be ignored. It was selfish, perhaps, but she wanted to know.

So she drank. They drank together, swallow after swallow, and Dana told him of the adventures he had missed, of Buck and the replacement diamonds and the mysterious Milord de Winter who she had found quite by accident on a train with his chatty sister-in-law.

As the brandy dipped low in the bottle, she confessed about Conrad and his mysterious disappearance, and the odd, ominous conversation she had shared with Rosnay Cho. Her voice broke as she repeated the words, “I’m sorry, buttercup, but you’re not getting him back.”

Athos shrugged.

“Seriously?” Dana howled at him, snatching back the bottle just as he was about to drink. “That’s all you’ve got?”

“Either the lad got cold feet and went back to his wife, or his own meddling in politics got him killed. Not sure it matters either way. If you want sympathy, Aramis will hug you until the end of time. Porthos is particularly good at tea and kind shoulder-patting. I don’t actually give a fuck.”

“Are you dead inside?” Dana snarled.

Athos gave her a thin smile. “Basically.”

“Because you killed your husband.” A low blow, but she was losing patience with him.

“Not even that.” He reached for the bottle, and Dana held on to it stubbornly. Athos growled. “But I’ll admit it turned me off any interest in epic love stories. Even yours, sweetness.”

“How did you end up on that mountain, miserable out of your skin?” she challenged him. “What happened to you here on Valour?”

“It didn’t happen to me,” Athos said, pulling more forcefully on the bottle. Dana held on to it, using all of her muscle strength to keep the bottle in her lap. “It happened to someone else.”

Dana felt the cellar tilt around her. She had let herself get more drunk than she meant to, and she wasn’t sure about anything any more except that she was not going to let Athos drink another mouthful. “Who?” she asked.

Athos gave a last desperate lurch at the bottle, and Dana tugged it back with such determination that the glass cracked between their fingers, and the brandy leaked out over their boots.

“It happened to the Count de la Fere,” Athos snarled, barely seeming to notice that the glass had slashed a bloody line into his palm. “He’s dead too, and good riddance to him.”

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 a special Yuletide prequel story to be released in December. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock ART.

What I Did in November

Musketeer Space Updates:

25 – Love Letter to Absent Friends

26 – Rendezvous at the Fountain of Tranquility

27 – Paying for Porthos

28 – For Love of Aramis

Robotech Rewatch Updates:

23: Fastest Wedding Plot Twist Ever

24: Provocative Pairing Rituals

25: Ships Fall, Everyone Dies

26: Whole New World

27: Who the Hell Are The Robotech Masters?

Musketeer Media Monday: Musketeers Break My Heart Seventies Style (1974)

“Here is a thing that many people who only know the characters from modern movies do not know about book canon D’Artagnan: he’s a bit slutty.”

Watching New Who: The Doctor’s Wife

“That blew my mind when I saw this episode – it’s pretty rare to watch a Doctor Who story that completely changes the way you view the stories that came before it, all the way back to 1963.”

Skiffy and Fanty: Squeeing about Superheroines

“There’s a lot to critique about the role of women in superhero comics and associated media — and I spend a lot of time and energy doing exactly that. But today, I’m here to talk about a bunch of reasons to be super excited about female superheroes, and what’s being written, drawn and performed either right now or in the future.”

Galactic Suburbia:

Episode 110: In which culture, we consume it.

Episode 111: In which we try to fix the world and don’t even fix ourselves, but progress is being made (we hope)

Verity:

Episode 59 - Dark Waterdeep

Episode 61 – Permission to Squeeeeeee! (About Series 8]

Verity! Extra! – Pleasant, Unpusillanimous Peri [interview with Nicola Bryant, w/ Big Finish recs from me & Liz]

ROBOTECH REWATCH 27: Who the Hell Are The Robotech Masters?

Robotech will be rewatched after these messages.

Minmei is sad, the Zentraedi are cranky and oh look, mysterious clones in another galaxy! I wonder if they’ll turn out to be significant at all?

Episode 29 – The Robotech Masters



Unexpected Robotech Masters! Three mysterious men talking about Zor and the Invid suddenly turn up, talking about the missing protoculture factory and the secrets of Robotech. To some extent, they are explaining the plot so far, as far as what’s been going on with the humans and the Zentraedi, though it’s mostly lucky guesswork on their part.

They seem quite skeptical that humans might have been able to destroy Dolza’s fleet because, 1 ship against 4 million? So unlikely, though it does lead to the charming quote:

“The destruction of 4 million Robotech ships doesn’t happen every day…”

Who are these guys? I don’t remember them being introduced so early, but then I find the Robotech Masters incredibly dull so I think I used to just zone out whenever they came on screen. Right now the important thing is they look identical, they use colour coded collars to tell each other apart, and they’re not even in our galaxy. But they do seem to be a little too interested in our sweeties…

Back on the ravaged Earth, the narrator talks about how many Zentraedi died holding Minmei dolls. They changed sides for her – for her music and what she represented. But many of those who switched sides and survived are now deeply unhappy, trying to fit into a society that is so different to what they are used to.

One such example is so bored out of his mind with repetitive factory work that he throws a wobbly and jumps the fence. He’s not the only one – it’s happening all over.

Minmei, meanwhile, is trying to work as a lounge singer despite living in an apocalypse – she’s miserable and not performing well. It doesn’t help that the audiences are getting smaller and less appreciative. Her breakup with Kyle sadly didn’t stick – he’s acting like the cheesiest pimp/manager ever and yes, their relationship is textbook abusive. It’s very uncomfortable to watch.

When Minmei tries to get away to have dinner with her family, Kyle almost drives them off the road in an attempt to manipulate her. It’s horrible. But at least he’s not pretending to be a pacifist any more while being simultaneously aggressive and awful. Even Kyle’s not that much of a hypocrite.

A formal meeting of the core SDF crew and Exedore gets heated when Exedore tries to push his theory (based on data analysis) that the humans and Zentraedi are similarly warlike, and basically both races come from the same source. Rick is offended about the whole ‘humans are warlike’ thing despite all evidence to the contrary.

Minmei reunites with her aunt and uncle and the overly-friendly mayor, and gets to spend some time in her old bedroom. Her eyes are drawn to the badly repaired corner of the room where Rick burst through it that time in a Robotech ship – which is WEIRD, because wasn’t the building completely rebuilt from scratch twice? Why would the corner be all dodgy and patched?

Also, he came in through the whole wall as shown in the flashback, not the corner. Why is the corner significant?

Everyone else is getting on with the current plot, but Minmei thinks this is a clip show, so she runs through the greatest hits of her relationship with Rick. It’s sadly brief. They really didn’t spend much time with each other, did they?

The next morning, several of our regulars wake up and go about their business in the shiny, built-all-over-again New Macross City. Rick is jogging. Minmei is wandering around. Rico, Konda and Bron are running a dry cleaning business now, but still have time to gossip about their favourite celebrity – and then they catch sight of her in the street.

Delighted, the boys get Minmei to autograph items of clothing that don’t belong to them, making her smile for the first time in ages.

A few streets away, the mayor and his wife come under attack from a couple of rogue Zentraedi, who threaten and scare them.

Lisa and Rick actually manage a normal, nice conversation when they run into each other in the street. She raises some non-specific concerns about bad stuff being about to happen, he waves it off, and then he admits he put the photo of her in his album. Minmei spots them having the nice conversation and runs off crying, because no one she’s ever liked is allowed to make a connection with another human being years later. Lisa understandably rolls her eyes because WTF now? How is there a Minmei insert in her otherwise pleasant morning?

All the storylines collide when the rogue Zentraedi get noisy, just as some Robotech defenders arrive to shoot at them. Rick tries to talk the rebels down, but they’re not that interested in the government policy he has to offer – which is that they’re not allowed to run off and join their own people and possibly become a threat to human society. They have to stay right here and suck it up.

Unfortunately, and it’s pretty clear that Rick knows this, the answer to his order is – well, what are you going to do? The Zentraedi are enormous, they can leave whenever the hell they like. And they do.

Minmei, eavesdropping on all this, is devastated when she hears one Zentraedi trying to convince his friends to stay, citing her as their original inspiration to join the humans.

Meanwhile, what has Khyron been up to these last two years? Turns out he has been gathering all the escapees and rebels of his own people, with Azonia at his right hand (in the same room together!) He wants his men to spread the word that sanctuary will be given to any Zentraedi, even the micronised ones – and he will make it possible for them to be returned to their proper size.

I’m guessing this is going to be trouble. Though I’m not sure if Khyron is capable of doing anything when he doesn’t have other people’s orders to aggressively ignore. We’ll see!

Minmei is late to the day’s concert, and when Kyle carps about the small audiences, she retorts that she will sing for herself, regardless of who is listening.

It’s that sad song again, and we are reminded once again that the war has had a terrible cost on everyone. Minmei’s not the Stage Fright girl any more – and there are those pictures of the dead Zentraedi with Minmei dolls all over again, to ram the point home.

It’s pretty bleak to be the most famous celebrity singer in a world where everyone else is worried about food and survival.

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, and especially to my paid patrons. You can support Musketeer Space at Patreon.

Musketeer Space Part 28 – For Love of Aramis

41501 / 50000 words. 83% done with Nanowrimo!

Musketeer Day!

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 27

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana lost her friends somewhere in the Solar System, during the mission for the Prince Consort. Now she’s picking up the pieces – and that means locating and rescuing each of them from whatever mayhem they’ve got themselves into. Porthos was drunk, wounded and in debt on Chantilly Station, and now they’re out to find Aramis, before she gives up the Musketeer life altogether.

NOW READ ON.

This chapter is dedicated to Tania Duffield. Thanks so much for supporting Musketeer Space.



Chapter 28 – For Love of Aramis

The plan to find Aramis ran aground on Meung Station. Dana, Planchet, Bonnie and Porthos split up across the station, checking every cathedral and religious space before admitting that she was likely not here at all. She had spent several days at a hospice on Meung, but had disappeared off the grid shortly after checking herself out.

“I’ll meet you back at the dealership,” Porthos said gruffly over the comm.

They had found the Morningstar earlier that day, in a corner of a dodgy spaceship dealership reserved for crafts in hock. Aramis hadn’t sold her ship outright, which was vaguely reassuring, but she had obviously been desperately need of funds to pawn it at such a disreputable establishment.

“But the manager said he couldn’t release contact information,” Dana protested.

“Yes,” said Porthos in a voice so chilly that it could have belonged to Athos. “And I was happy to let that go when I thought we would pick her up at one of the nearby cathedrals. But we’re running out of options, and I’m prepared to give it another shot.”

Another shot, as it turned out, meant Porthos slapping on pearls and a high scarlet beehive of a wig before returning to the dealership and trying every single craft they had available to pick exactly which one her fake husband (whom she always called ‘my darling Coquenard’) should buy for her. Dana trailed in her wake in the role of assistant, making the occasional apology on behalf of her ‘boss’ as Porthos readjusted every screen and seat in the place, and managed to smear lipstick on nearly every smooth surface purely by “accident”.

The salesman, who was more junior than the manager who had been on duty last time they swung past, was obviously conscious of being the only one there during the siesta break, and thus responsible for any potential damage that this troublesome customer might inflict upon the vehicles.

All of this created a mighty distraction, epic enough to prevent anyone from noticing Planchet and Bonnie as they broke into the back office with a handful of connection cables and a pack of empty data studs.

“Let’s try the red one again!” Porthos shrieked, playing up an accent that tilted between ‘New Aristocrat’ and ‘Holo-soap Diva’. “My darling Coquenard loves to see me in red, and I have the perfect shoes to match.”

“There aren’t any red ones, madam,” said the salesman, sounding rather desperate.

“That’s a terrible state of affairs, my good fellow. Which ones can we make red?”

There was something about the coffee printers on Meung Station that made every liquid taste like it had a faint film of oil on its surface. Porthos refused to even try printing tea until they were back on the Hoyden.

“Aramis used a false name to pawn the ship,” said Planchet, cracking open the clamshell to show the files she had stolen.

Porthos glanced over her shoulder as she placed a large, genuine china teapot and several small cups on the floor of the cockpit. “Oh no, sweet pea, R. de Herblay is her birth name.” A look of distress flitted across her face. “That’s bad.”

“Why is that bad?” Dana asked, pouring tea for everyone. She was sure Porthos would have done it herself by now if she wanted it to be done perfectly.

“Because she hates her name. If she’s using it, that means – she needs her legal identity.”

“Probably to join the seminary,” said Planchet, helping herself to a cup. She rocked back, startled as Porthos and Dana turned identical looks of fury upon her. “What, sorry, what did I say? Help?”

Bonnie reached out and prodded both Porthos and Dana back a few inches so that they loomed less threateningly over the engie-in-training. “Breathe,” she commanded to them all.

Porthos did actually take a few deep breaths, and knocked back half a cup of scalding tea to calm herself. “Why did you say that about a seminary? What seminary?”

“The contact information Aramis gave the dealership is Crevecouer Abbey,” said Planchet, shuffling back awkwardly to add more distance between them all. Dana didn’t blame her. Porthos looked positively murderous. “It’s on Dover Satellite, attached to the university there. It’s a seminary for new priests.”

The words that next came out of Porthos’ mouth were anything but religious.

“Are we bad people?” Dana asked, a few hours later. They had retreated swiftly from Meung Station, flying the Hoyden to Dover Satellite and finding a cheap dock to leave her in. Bonnie and Planchet had elected to remain on the ship, perhaps suspecting that Porthos and Dana were about to do something they shouldn’t.

Dover Satellite used almost as much Artifice as Paris Satellite, perhaps more. They currently stood on a wide, grass-lined avenue with a starscape above them which gave the illusion of being dirtside, except for the visible rotation of the stars.

Porthos had changed from her usual civilian glamour into Musketeer battledress – her blue flight suit and fleur-de-lis jacket, with her shorn hair bare to the false sky. She had even wiped off her lipstick.

Dana wore Athos’ not-a-Musketeer blue jacket over her own charcoal grey flight suit. Both of them wore their Pilot’s Slices slung from belts, and sensible boots. Ready for action.

“I have no idea what you mean,” said Porthos. She leaned against a wall, staring at the pretty, fluted tower of Crevecouer Abbey. The Artifice was so detailed that it even had what looked like green ivy clambering all over the pale golden stonework.

“I mean,” Dana sighed. “If Aramis really wants to sign herself up to the priesthood – and we know she’s always talking about how she plans to someday – shouldn’t we let her get on with it? Are we bad people for stopping her doing something that might make her happy?”

Porthos’ eyes went darker than usual. “I don’t care if it’s selfish,” she said after a long moment. “And I don’t give a flying frig if it makes us bad people. I want her back. She’s my best friend, and they can’t have her. Also, she owes me money.”

Dana felt relief wash over her. “Okay,” she said with a biting grin. “Let’s be terrible people, then.”

“It’s what we do best,” Porthos replied.

Crevecouer Abbey was not letting Aramis go without a fight. Their opening salvo consisted mostly of nuns. Several elderly, sweet-faced old dears met Porthos and Dana at the door, politely explaining why it was that ‘Novice de Herblay’ could not receive visitors during the period of contemplation, as she was in consultation with several advisors about the thesis she was to present to the Abbott. The Abbott would then decide on her suitability to join the Church as a novice priest.

Every time one of them referred to Aramis as Novice de Herblay, Porthos gritted her teeth and corrected them with ‘Captain’ until she looked about ready to explode.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” Dana put in when there was finally a gap in the conversation. “We have brought some papers for Captain de Herblay that she greatly needs to reference in her thesis proposal.”

“Oh, that’s all right then,” the nuns said happily, and offered them fresh-brewed tea.

“Maybe later,” said Porthos. It was a sign of how desperate things were that she only twitched a little about turning down the offer of tea that had been brewed instead of printed.

One of the more elderly nuns led the Musketeer and her friend up a winding staircase which served no purpose other than the aesthetic, and along to a library. Dana knew they were in the right place, because Bazin the android stood to stiff attention, guarding the door of his mistress.

As he saw Porthos and Dana approach, the android looked more dismayed than Dana had thought was even possible, on the face of an artificial person.

“Please, Captain-Lieutenant Porthos,” he moaned. “It’s so calm here, and no one ever tries to shoot at us, and Novice de Herblay is planning a most excellent thesis that will confirm her brilliance in the scholarly arts of theology…”

“Modesty in all, Bazin,” said the nun, chiding him. “We have no need for pride here.”

The android’s stiff metal shoulders slumped. “Yes, Sister,” he sighed. “I would prefer not to let these people in to interrupt Novice de Herblay.”

“We serve God and All, Bazin, not our personal needs,” said the nun, moving him aside.

“I dislike spaceships so much,” the android engineer muttered. “A few centuries of religious contemplation and not being shot at, is that too much to ask? We were so close.”

Porthos gave him an unsympathetic clap on the shoulder as she was ushered into the library by the elderly nun. “We’ll have a talk about loyalty to the Royal Fleet later, Bazin.”

“Yes, Captain-Lieutenant Porthos,” Bazin sighed.

Dana slipped into the library after Porthos, and almost crashed into her back because her friend had stopped still in the middle of the room.

There, at a table strewn with antique books, was their Aramis. She wore a flowing black robe and a full star-scarf wrapped around her hair. Her eyes were alight with animated intelligence as she argued with two priests about the nature of God and All.

“But surely it is not heresy to acknowledge one’s occasional reluctance in choosing to serve God…” In that moment, Aramis saw her visitors. She broke off her earnest debate, and smiled with dazzling warmth.

Dana’s old crush on her friend smacked her hard in the chest again. She had somehow lost her immunity to Aramis’ beauty in the time they had been apart. Aramis glowed with happiness, still fired up from the intellectual debate she was enjoying.

“Oh, we’re terrible people,” Dana whispered.

“I can live with that,” said Porthos.

“My friends,” said Aramis, her joy filling the room. “I am so glad to see you are unharmed.”

“Mostly,” said Porthos. “I took a wound or two but it’s all fixed up now, and Dana’s barely dented. How about you?”

Aramis pressed her hand to her chest and smiled. “You’ll laugh at me for giving God the credit and not the hospice, but this time I do believe I was saved for something more, Pol.”

“Something more than being a Musketeer,” Porthos repeated. “Something more than Paris and friendship and serving the Crown?”

“I hope you don’t mind the interruption, superiors,” Aramis added to her new companions, who eyed Porthos and Dana as if they had rolled in drunk from the nearest tavern. “I have not seen my friends in a terribly long time. Porthos, D’Artagnan, perhaps you can help me with your perspective.”

Porthos let out a short laugh, but pulled up a chair to the table. “If it’s about your thesis, darling, I doubt I can contribute much.”

Dana followed her lead, sitting beside Porthos. “Unless your thesis is about swords or spaceships,” she added, happy to play along. “We’re good at swords and spaceships.”

Aramis’ eyes gleamed, and she continued with unironic enthusiasm for her topic. “Ah, but you see, it’s all about dogmatism versus idealism, and I am sure you have an opinion as to which most accurately reflects the kind of priest I should become upon my ordination…”

Dana saw Porthos grip the chair arms, her knuckles standing out as white against the usual brown skin of her hands.

“You actually mean to go ahead with this?” Porthos asked softly.

“It is the life I have always wanted, dear heart,” Aramis replied, breaking off further discussion about dogmatic theory to smile at her friend. “And – it is the right time, for me.”

Porthos had an awful look on her face, and Dana realised that she was giving up. Her face actually seemed to be pulling itself into an ‘I am happy for you’ expression instead of the more expected ‘if you do this I will burn this abbey to the ground’ expression.

“I think perhaps,” Dana broke in, making the priests and Aramis all suddenly look at her with avid attention. “Before you make the final decision about this thesis of yours, Aramis, you should consider all the relevant source material.”

The priests blinked at her. Aramis had an odd smile on her face. It was sad, without the warmth she had turned upon her friends earlier. She was still so beautiful that it made Dana want to cry. “Did you have something in mind, pup?”

Dana slid the letter from Captain Dubois out of the inner pocket in Athos’ jacket. “Like this, for instance.” The paper crackled as she handed the envelope across, placing it into Aramis’ outstretched hand.

Aramis gripped the envelope a little too firmly. It crumpled in her fingers with a sharp sound before she seized control of herself and flattened it out against the surface of the table. After contemplating the envelope for a moment, she tore the letter open and read it silently to herself.

Dana did not dare look at Porthos. She stared at Aramis and waited, well aware that everyone in the room was also staring at Aramis and waiting for her to finish reading her letter.

No pressure, or anything.

“Superiors,” Aramis said after a moment. “You will excuse me, please. I must – commit myself to private contemplation for an hour or two. May we pick up this discussion after Matins?” She rose, ushering the priests to the door with a smoothness they found it difficult to argue with, though both fellows were evidently well practiced at arguing. “Bazin, see I am not disturbed,” Aramis added, and then closed the door firmly behind the representatives of the seminary.

Porthos turned to look at Aramis, hope alight in her eyes. Dana realised they were both actively holding their breath. This was ridiculous, and yet…

Aramis pressed the letter to her chest and grinned the wickedest of grins. “She loves me. Tracy Dubois loves me.”

Dana let out a long huff of air in relief.

“Well, of course she does,” said Porthos, as if she hadn’t doubted for a minute. “Wants you back, then?”

“How quickly can we get home to Paris?”

“That depends,” said Dana. “Do you want to get your ship before you go? Because we might not have enough credit to get the Morningstar out of hock.”

Aramis pondered this for a moment and then laughed carelessly. “We’ll work something out.”

Porthos leaped to her feet and gave Aramis a rough hug. “You scared me for a minute there, you rotten cow.”

Aramis kissed her hair. “All for one and one for all, you silly bitch.” She looked over Porthos’ head to Dana. “Where is he?”

Dana might not be smart enough to contemplate a pre-ordination thesis in theology, but she knew exactly who Aramis was talking about. “Athos is down on Valour. We crashed the Parry Riposte more than a week ago, and I had to leave him and Grimaud there to salvage the ship while I completed the mission.”

“He’s down on the planet?” Porthos exclaimed. “You never told me that. That’s not good, Dana. We should have collected him first.”

Dana wanted to point out that they might have lost Aramis to the Church forever if they hadn’t picked her up today, but she knew better than to protest.

Aramis paced back and forth in front of the door. “This is bad. Athos and Valour do not do well together.”

“I’m aware,” Dana said sharply. She wasn’t an idiot.

“Either he’s dead, or there’s no wine left on that planet,” announced Aramis. “I know which option I’d bet my money on.” She tucked the love letter from Tracy Dubois inside her flowing black robes. “Let’s find out where Bazin has hidden my flight suit, and go bring home our boy.”

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 a special Yuletide prequel story to be released in December. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock ART.