Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 53

ROBOTECH REWATCH 26: Whole New World

Robotech Will Be Rewatched After These Messages.

We’ve entered a new phase of the story – and the one that I really think of as mine. I was a sporadic watcher of Robotech when I first discovered the show. Hey, remember the days when if you missed an episode you couldn’t just jump online for a catchup? It was years before I saw a lot of the early parts of the saga. But the New New Macross era (no it’s not called that) marks the stage where I was watching religiously and, let’s face it, obsessively.

Later when I got into the novelisations, the first one I owned was a collection of books 4, 5 and 6, which is the second half of the Macross-Rick-Lisa-Minmei story, and gave me an even more intense familiarity with these particular scenes and storylines.

So it’s this world-weary Lisa and shellshocked Rick who first made a strong impression on me, not to mention drunk and abusive Kyle, and the older, sadder version of Minmei.

Jack McKinney’s novelisations, by the way, are some of my favourite space opera novels of all time. They’re based on a cartoon, and yet he invests them with a great deal of gravitas, building up the storylines into something that feels tailored for an adult audience. I particularly love the chapter headings which are matched with snippets from “historical” documents, giving a larger sense of the history that these characters are making, and the story still to come. This includes academic texts, pop culture essays, and snippets from Lisa’s memoir.

The fact that she’s gonna be an Admiral someday doesn’t make the thing where she does Rick’s dishes any less weird.

Episode 28 – Reconstruction Blues

It’s two years later.

Yes, really.

Rick, now Commander Hunter, is on a general patrol when he discovers a tiny patch of flowers and grass growing among the rubble. It’s an amazing sign of hope, that the brutally damaged Earth is renewing herself and has maybe forgiven them.

He recalls his first sight of a pilot flying (Roy, of course) and himself as a child chasing the plane, trampling wildflowers underfoot. He also muses about Exedore’s theory that almost the whole universe’s supply of Protoculture might have been destroyed in the war that is now over, and that it would be their fault that the legacy of the Robotech Masters was lost.

Hmm, Robotech Masters. Wonder if that will be important.

The narrator introduces us to New New Macross City, a massive metropolis. The SDF1 is now retired from air duty, settled in the middle of a lake, but still used as a central military hub. It’s like an office with legs.

Cut to Lisa, doing housework (unasked) at Rick’s portacabin. It’s… distressing because as it turns out, she and Rick have not yet cemented any kind of romantic relationship, but she’s sort of acting like his girlfriend in the hopes that he will notice her. (for years I thought that the novelisation implied they were actually sleeping with each other at this point but I suspect that was a misreading based on teen shipping angst) In the midst of her chores, Lisa finds a photo album dedicated entirely to pictures of Minmei. She turns his Minmei poster upside down and leaves, shaking her own head at herself for being so foolish to try to compete with the glamorous star.

I didn’t realise that this was a test of my parenting until I saw Ms9’s reaction to this scene. She checked with me that Lisa and Rick weren’t living together now (nope, she just lets herself into his place to do his dishes even though she outranks him) and Ms9′s eyes widened with horror and disappointment. She could not imagine any circumstances under which this was okay.

That’s my girl.

Rick is feeling maudlin about the fact that he only ever wanted to be a pilot, not to be in the military, and he avoids checking in with his team. When he hears Minmei on the radio, he goes into a personal tailspin. He then hears Kyle and his pacifist rantings as he introduces Minmei at a concert in Granite City, who are apparently embracing their independence.

Rick tells his men about the flowers and then goes on an unscheduled trip to see Minmei in concert.

There’s another new song from Minmei (well we would hope so after two years, but never take anything for granted). And I’m going to admit at this point that I genuinely like this one. It’s the one I find myself singing most often in the kitchen. It also fits the new Minmei, since it’s all wistful instead of bubbly and vapid.

It’s you I miss.

It’s you who’s on my mind.

It’s you I cannot leave behind.

And oh yes, it’s kind of blatantly about that boy Minmei likes.

Lisa is holding a pity party for herself at a cafe because Rick is not her boyfriend. She daydreams about she and Rick having a baby when she spots Max and Miriya with their new little scamp (HELLO DANA YOU ARE GONNA BE MY FAVOURITE AND MY BEST) and then rolls her eyes when she hears Minmei on the radio.

So the good news is that the show is no longer trying to hide the fact that Kyle is a complete jerk. He has turned into the most unsubtle caricature of a drunk and abusive partner. He’s furious that Minmei was only paid in supplies rather than cash, despite her being supposedly on a benefit tour.

Rick eavesdrops as Minmei and Kyle have what looks like a painful, ugly break up – but is it a break up as agent-star or boyfriend girlfriend?

He then gets a call to deal with Zentraedi rebels, and leaves Minmei with her drunk asshole cousin/boyfriend. I kind of feel that makes him a bad friend. Yes it would have been an awkward moment, but would it have killed him to ask her if she needed a lift somewhere?

But let’s talk about the Zentraedi, because one of the most interesting aspects of this shiny new society they are building is that they have a bunch of humans and a bunch of Zentraedi trying to co-exist – and not all of the Zentraedi are micronised. There’s actually some interesting exploration (more in the books than the show) about the political implications of changing (or not changing) your physical size to fit in with society.

It’s very clear that the Zentraedi are being expected to modify themselves in other ways, too, and that many are struggling with the change. It’s an expanded, more complex take on the question of how veterans soldiers cope during peacetime, when their military skills are no longer needed or indeed valued as highly.

So couple of the ‘rebels’ are tearing up a city in their Battlepods, and Rick was sent in because he was the closest. Which is fine except that he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be, and has now been busted.

Lisa and Rick have a tearing domestic over the comms about his disappearing act – she’s already figured out the “coincidence” of him just happening to turn up near the city where Minmei is performing.

The bridge crew gossip about Lisa and Rick. Sami reveals that Lisa cleans Rick’s apartment, and he doesn’t even take her places. They are shocked that someone as smart as her has been roped into such a dodgy arrangement.

Lisa, even the eyelash-batting bridge crew think you’re letting the feminists down. Just saying.

Rick faces a furious Lisa back at the base. They must have some kind of relationship, surely, beyond being ‘just friends’ because he knows he has stuffed up. She tells him she knows she went to see Minmei, and shoves some photos of herself at him “to remember me by.”

Honestly, this whole plot makes so much sense if they are sleeping together but not technically boyfriend-girlfriend, but what do I know?

Rick is super confused about why Lisa wants him to have pictures of her looking cute. He is so bad at this.

Minmei, meanwhile, caught in her own personal misery, thinks about Rick and wonders where he is.

NO MINMEI, YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM, I’M SERIOUS ABOUT THIS. FOCUS ON YOUR CAREER, GIRL.

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 27 – Paying for Porthos

30134 / 50000 words. 60% done!

It’s Drowned Vanilla week, but Musketeer Day stops for no one.

If you’re in Hobart, please drop by the Hobart Bookshop tomorrow evening for the launch of my second Culinary Crime murder mystery, written under the name Livia Day. If you can’t make the launch, you will be able to purchase Drowned Vanilla at various bookshops around Australia or directly from the publisher, Twelfth Planet Press. There is an ebook edition coming soon.

Other exciting things happening this week include me finally clawing my way back to ‘par’ with Nanowrimo, and putting up a Musketeer Media Monday post about the second of the Richard Lester Musketeer films: Musketeers Break My Heart Seventies Style (1974). Oh, and the Robotech Rewatch, another Musketeer Space meta series sponsored by my Patreon supporters, reached that episode where the Earth is basically destroyed.

All this, and Ms9 got to the end of the Harry Potter books. I’m ridiculously proud of her, it was one hell of a reading effort, and it’s pretty clear that she is now in love with the whole book reading process. She also had to suffer that terrible experience of ‘I’ve been reading this series I adore for months WTF do I do now’ and of course solved it by starting again at the beginning.

But you’re not here for all that, you’re here for space hijinks and Musketeer BFFs! I’m excited because after separating my sweeties for too long, we’re finally heading into the ‘get the band back together’ arc, which is up there with the Musketeer Meet-Cute and the epic four way duel with the Englishmen as my favourite bits of the original story. Okay, those aren’t my only favourite bits.

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 26.

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY IN MUSKETEER SPACE:

Dana D’Artagnan set out on a quest to the planet Valour, to protect the Prince Consort’s reputation – and along the way, all three of her best friends, the Musketeers, were wounded or lost. Now she’s determined to get them back – assuming they’re still alive…

NOW READ ON!

This chapter is dedicated to Mindy Johnson. Thanks so much for supporting Musketeer Space and for naming Porthos’ Hoyden!

Chapter 27 – Paying for Porthos

Dana had flown a lot of ships lately that were not hers. The crew shuttle didn’t count, not really. But Rosnay Cho’s Moth, and then the Parry Riposte, had clawed themselves into her head. In both cases she had been high on stress, terror and excitement – and with the Parry Riposte, she had been dealing with the added pressure of Athos nearly dying and the colossal mindfuck of blending their brains together with nexus to keep the damn boat in the air.

The Hoyden was like a cool breath of lemon-scented oxygen, by comparison. Of course Porthos’ ship would be the most comfortable, inside and out. This was going to be a cruise made of cake.

Getting away from Paris Satellite was the difficult part. Dana had made sure to leave her digs well before Planchet set out for her “holiday” so that Madame Su did not suspect that Dana was stealing (borrowing!) her mechanic.

Still, the travel pack that she had swung over her shoulder apparently smelled of guilt, because Madame Su was out and about suspiciously early, getting in Dana’s face about her comings and goings.

“Why, you’re hardly here but you’re off again, Mecha Cadet, they work you hard down on Lunar Palais, don’t they?” she said with open curiosity as she barred Dana’s path out of the workshop.

“Well, you know all about hard work, don’t you, Madame Su,” Dana replied, polite as anything. The last thing she could afford to do was lose her temper at her landlady, even if Dana was worried sick about the woman’s missing husband.

It would be almost reassuring at this point, to know Conrad was back in the hands of Rosnay Cho. But the charming and devious Milord was another matter. Dana had not been sure how dangerous he was until she heard the way Ro spoke of him. She could still feel the Special Agent’s breath on her cheek as she whispered those last few words to her.

If Milord has your boyfriend, you’re not getting him back.



But damn it, she had no idea where to even start looking for Conrad Su, and she needed Athos, Aramis and Porthos back in her corner. They had to be her first priority.

After she finally shook off her landlady – whose curiosity about Dana’s plans for the week was not only out of character, but a definite warning sign – Dana’s next stop was to Amiral Treville. She hadn’t checked in yet with the commander of the Musketeers who had allowed the mission in the first place, without even knowing what it was. Dana had to report the loss of all three Musketeers and her intention to fetch them back as soon as possible.

Without mentioning the specific details of the mission, such as the diamonds, Buck and Prince Alek, not to mention her own romantic interests, Dana did her best to share what she could with the large, intimidating Amiral. After a moment’s hesitation, she did confess about her confusing conversation with Special Agent Rosnay Cho, and concern about Conrad’s disappearance and the possibility that her landlady was now operating as one of the Cardinal’s spies.

There was something deeply reassuring about discussing these things with such a solid presence of Amiral Treville, when the commander of the Musketeers wasn’t pausing to bellow at her pilots in the plexi-glass corridor. Dana had been worried that she sounded like something out of a holo-soap, but Treville nodded calmly and listened and took her seriously.

“Leave the Su matter with me, D’Artagnan,” she said as Dana’s report wound up. “I’ll have a quiet word with his Highness at our next meeting, and we’ll see if we can’t find out what’s happened. Chances are, once this latest kidnapper figures out that the tailor can’t be brain-drained, he’ll be dumped back in the city somewhere. You bring back my Musketeers, and we’ll reconvene in a week or so to pool our findings.”

Dana smiled at that, feeling oddly comforted by Treville’s confidence. “You don’t think they’re dead, then?”

“Dead drunk, maybe,” Treville scoffed. “I think not one of those three would give me the satisfaction of coming to a bad end. Far more likely that they’ll be the death of me. You, though, kid,” she added with a rare smile as she issued another travel pass and credit transfer to D’Artagnan for the journey, for ransoms, hospice bills and any other expense that the three Musketeers might have incurred. “I have a feeling you may outlast us all.”

Now Dana was at the helm of the Hoyden, allowing Planchet to fasten her into the harness, and opening her mind to the smooth inner workings of the ship.

Please enjoy this flight. I just know we’ll do so very well together.

She hadn’t quite known what to expect from Porthos’ ship computer, but with a name like Hoyden she hadn’t expected a voice like warm marmalade and an encouraging, maternal air.

That’s right, dear, you’re doing wonderfully, the ship added as she pulled them out of the dock and into open space. What reflexes! I am impressed.

It was embarrassing how nice it felt to have the ship praise her, even though she knew it was a thoroughly egotistical quirk of programming. She was going to have to tease Porthos about it, when she found her, and the thought of it made Dana grin all over her face. “Let’s look at those ransom demands,” she said once the flight was underway and the ship’s glowing compliments had eased off to a gentle, encouraging murmur.

Planchet tapped her clamshell and called up the text exchange to one of the Hoyden’s navigation panels so Dana could read it easily.

987ss3Xunknown - To retrieve Capt Porthos: Chantilly Station, Grand St Martins, Room 308. Bring 1500 credits.

029PlanchetCS - May we speak directly to Capt. Porthos or Eng. Boniface to confirm their location and identity?

987ss3Xunknown - Planchet don’t be an idiot this is B. Do you have the funds? Lives may depend!

029PlanchetCS - We’ll be there. What is the status of Captain P?

987ss3Xunknown - She’s driving me up the fucking wall, that’s her status.

“That does sound like Bonnie,” Dana agreed. “I wonder why they need so much credit to release her.”

Planchet frowned. “Isn’t Grand St Martins a casino? I’m sure I heard about it being a casino.”

Dana did her best not to beat her forehead upon the dashboard of the smooth-talking ship. “Or there’s that,” she sighed. Somehow, she had fallen into the trap of thinking that Porthos was the sensible one of the three. But she had been gambling with Red Guards when jumped in the first place.

And a sensible Musketeer was still a Musketeer. Ratbags and reprobates, all of them.

She missed them so much.

“We’ll see soon enough,” Planchet said cheerfully, as if the results would be fun however they turned out.

Chantilly Station was so very different to Meung Station. Meung was primarily a refuelling stopover, packed with engies and mechanics and seedy, one-night entertainments. Chantilly, on the other hand, was a high end tourist zone and shopping hub. Dana was no longer surprised at the size of Porthos’ ransom – the number of digital ads and stings that poured into her comm on the short walk from the space dock to the central plaza was so overwhelming that she wouldn’t have been shocked to find Porthos stuffed and mounted in a fancy department store.

Everything was for sale in Chantilly.

Grand St Martins was not a casino. It was worse than that. Grand St Martins was, quite obviously, the most expensive hotel on the station. Possibly the most expensive hotel anywhere within Valour Space. It oozed class, and charm, and you could practically smell the price of everything rolling off it like a perfumed haze.

The windows were made of real stained glass, and the entrance door of genuine polished wood. Dana was starting to think that the ransom for Porthos was suspiciously low.

As they stepped into the hotel lobby, and Planchet let out a short breath of either excitement or amazement, Dana realised that there was another pertinent detail about this place that had not been evident from the outside. It wasn’t for humans.

Oh, the staff were human enough, for the most part, but every guest from the receptionist to the dimly-lit bar restaurant at the far end of the foyer was a Mendaki. Dana had always got along rather well with the aliens she had met in pilot bars and similar dives, back on Gascon Station as well as on her various stopovers across the solar system and even in Paris from time to time. But they had been comrades, able to speak the common language of ships and beer and spare parts.

These Mendaki were from the richer end of the interplanetary alliance. They wore flowing robes and jewelled piercings instead of flightsuits and mildly pornographic tattoos. They spoke their own language in bell-like trills instead of using dodgy translator units to approximate speech in Standard.

Most tellingly of all, the staff waited on them hand and foot, with the kind of polite servitude that always irritated Dana, no matter who was doing the serving and who was being treated better than everyone else. Still, there was no getting around the fact that this was a hotel for the Mendaki and their comforts. What on earth was Porthos doing here?

“Brilliant,” whispered Planchet. “I’ve never seen so many all in one place. Aren’t those outfits amazing?”

“Let’s stroll towards the sphere-lift,” Dana said quietly, her eyes on the circular door to the left of the front desk. “As if we’ve been staying here all week. Casual as you can.”

“Oh we won’t stand out at all, do you think?” asked Planchet, and it took Dana a moment to realise that the young engie wasn’t being sarcastic.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Dana sighed. Together, shoulders back, they headed for the sphere-lift.

They didn’t make it. Two staff members in tailored uniforms cut them off and led them back to the front desk with such deference and politeness that Dana was hardly aware it was happening.

“Can we help you, madame and madame?” asked one.

“Are you guests of the hotel?” asked the other.

Dana lifted her chin. “We’re visiting a friend on the third floor,” she said, using a tone of relaxed confidence that reminded her of Aramis and how she was always wrapping complete strangers around her little finger.

It didn’t work so well for Dana.

Both staff members sucked in a breath and looked at her with suspicion. “And the name of your friend?” said one.

“For security reasons, you understand,” said another.

Their voices were not nearly as deferential anymore.

Dana tried a knowing smile, though she was afraid it came out as more of a grimace. “It would be most indiscreet of me to tell you.”

“Ah,” said a soft voice behind them. “You would be Madame Porthos’ friends, I think.”

Dana and Planchet turned to see a tall blue-green Mendaki nearby. Her head was smoothly puckered, and her tendrils fell from the lower part of her face down almost as far as her knees. She wore a smart suit in the same colours as the staff uniforms, though better tailored. Most importantly of all, she was speaking excellent Standard rather than relying on the dubious effect of a translator unit.

“And you would be?” Dana asked sharply, not even caring if she came across as rude. She wanted to see Porthos alive and well, and pretence had never come easily to her.

“I am Madame Gsaoid, manager of this establishment,” said the Mendaki. “Can I assume that you are here to take custody of Madame Porthos?”

Take custody was an odd phrasing. “I am here to see her,” said Dana. “Is there any reason that I should not visit her in her room?”

“Not at all,” said Madame Gsaoid with a quick bow of her head. “I would be most pleased to escort you there personally if I did not fear for the life of myself and my staff.”

“Excuse me?” Dana said disbelievingly. “Who has threatened you?” Did this have something to do with Porthos’ ransom? What the hell kind of trouble had her friend got herself into? Thoughts of space mobsters and casino crime, or the Red Guards, or something worse than that, all flitted through her head at once.

“Why, Madame Porthos,” said Madame Gsaoid, with a jerky inflection of her mouth that Dana had learned in her experience with other Mendaki not to mistake for a smile. “She has threatened the safety of any of my staff who attempt to approach her room.”

Dana folded her arms. “And what did your staff do to her, to provoke such a threat?”

“There is the matter of the bill,” said the manager. “Madame Porthos has firmly discouraged any attempt to negotiate on what is currently owing. I very much hope that your presence will smooth these matters over.” She gave that totally-not-a-smile expression again.

Dana hesitated. She could probably cover the bill right now, but she wanted to hear what was going on with Porthos first. “I will visit with my friend,” she said. “And then I shall discuss her account with you. In about an hour. How does that sound?”

“That would be most satisfactory,” said Madame Gsaoid, and this time, when she made the expression that was certainly not a smile, her tendrils all stood to attention as if everyone in the hotel should be very, very afraid.

“Dana!” howled Porthos in delight, grabbing her friend around the neck to haul her into the hotel room. “You’re here! Finally. Something to eat?”

For a moment at least, Dana put aside her questions and simply enjoyed the fact that Porthos was alive and in one piece. “Are you drunk?” she asked as Porthos tugged her on to an oddly-shaped couch that was made of several circular tiers. Perhaps it was designed that way so the Mendaki could rest their tendrils on a different level to the rest of them.

“I am so drunk it’s not even funny,” Porthos agreed, burying Dana in a deep, bosomy embrace. “There is nothing else to do around here, and the food printer keeps making these lovely cocktails just for me.”

“Hi, Bonnie,” Dana said, barely able to disentangle herself from the hug with Porthos. Her friend was wearing bright green silk pyjamas, and a slightly askew beehive wig with jade hair pins.

Porthos’ engie, sprawled out on an enormous heart-shaped bed, glanced up from her clamshell and nodded politely then returned to whatever she was reading. “About time,” she said. “I want to get back to my kitchen and my real life. Have you paid the bill yet?”

“Not yet,” said Dana. “Porthos, what on earth happened after the Calais?”

Porthos immediately pulled up her pyjama top to show off a flawless brown stomach. “I got stabbed,” she said proudly. “Twice, with swords. And arc-ray burn here, under the ribs. Hurts like a bastard, arc-ray burn.”

“You look all right now,” Dana said, reaching out to tug Porthos’ clothes back into some semblance of order.

“The hotel sent up medipatches,” volunteered Bonnie. “We couldn’t go to a hospice because our credit studs were scoured by the red guards in the fight, so we couldn’t pay for anything.”

Porthos nodded, looking sadly around the hotel room. It was obviously designed for Mendaki and not humans – the surfaces were smooth and cool, and the bathroom that Dana could see through the doorway was twice the size of the bedroom, with a sunken pool. “A close friend of mine used to own this place,” she said. “Thought we could hole up for a week or two, and not have to worry about the bill.”

“By the time we realised it was under new management, we already owed them far too much,” Bonnie chipped in. “It didn’t help when Madame here slipped out to an underground gambling den or three and ran our debts up even higher.”

Porthos looked guilty. “Champagne?”

“No more drinking!” Dana chided. “Or gambling. We’ve got work to do, and two other Musketeers to find.”

Porthos leaned against her happily. “Missed you, pup. Where’s my Aramis? Missed her too.”

“I don’t know,” Dana sighed.

“And Athos. Is he sad without us? He gets grumpy when he’s left alone too long. I bet he’s grumpy and sad.”

“I hope not.” Dana extracted herself from Porthos’ octopus-like embrace and went to the door, calling up the final total for the room. “This has gone up since the manager spoke to me in the lobby!”

“Needed more champagne,” said Porthos, looking guilty.

“What you need is a dose of Sobriety.”

“Way ahead of you,” said Bonnie, holding up an ampoule between finger and thumb. “I had this printed three days ago, all ready for our exit. Got the good stuff because I don’t think a basic patch will actually hit the sides.”

Porthos sulked. “I’ll take it when we’re about to leave.”

“If we’re not about to leave right now, I may shoot you,” her engie replied.

“Damages,” Dana read out of the extensive list of items. “Porthos, really? You damaged the lift, a mirror and a bar stool?”

“They may have asked me to settle the bill at a tactless time,” Porthos admitted. “And my trigger finger was a bit – triggery, after the Calais.”

“And you threw a tantrum in the sphere-lift when that rich boyfriend of yours refused to settle your bill because his business manager wouldn’t let him,” Bonnie put in.

“Shut up, you. Also not on that list, I owe ninety credits to a local loan shark,” Porthos said helpfully. “He’s called Harry the Hand. Lovely bloke. Showed me pictures of his kids and promised not to break any of my limbs for at least a month as long as I stick to the payment plan.”

Dana finished reading off the damages, and sighed loudly. “I just hope we’re not going to need much credit to get Aramis out of wherever she is.”

“I tried contacting Bazin,” said Bonnie. “But all he sent me was some meaningful quotes about service to God.”

Porthos’ eyes went wide and she held out a hand urgently in Bonnie’s direction. “You never told me that. Sobriety, now. Give it.”

Bonnie gave her the ampoule and Porthos snapped it open with her teeth, swallowing the dose hard. “Aramis is alone with Bazin, away from Paris Satellite,” she said, her eyes already more alert than they must have been in more than a week. “This is bad. We should have prepared for the possibility.”

“I don’t understand,” Dana frowned. “He’s her engie, can’t he be trusted?”

“He’s had a week to work on her without the rest of us around,” Porthos hissed. “She’s probably a bloody Cardinal by now.”

Dana blinked. “Aramis wouldn’t throw away her service to the Musketeers to join the Church, would she?” She knew that her friend often talked about her time in the Musketeers being temporary, but she had assumed the day she would leave was a long way off.

“Not unless she was feeling especially sad and lonely and oh I don’t know, maybe someone had broken up with her recently?” Porthos snapped. “When Aramis gets dumped, she wallows in self pity and theological poetry and then, if Athos and I aren’t around to stop her, she almost always ends up trying to quit the service to become a priest. Every. Single. Time.”

Dana groaned. “Fine. I’ll pay the bill and we’ll get out of here as quick as we can. Planchet, do you still have that trace on the Morningstar?”

“It hasn’t moved from Meung since I first located it,” said Planchet.

Meung Station. Dana shuddered a little about the idea of returning there. But this time, she would have friends at her back. She had a sudden memory of Athos at the helm of the Parry Riposte, with pursuit ships coming at them from all sides.

“Three cathedrals on Meung Station,” she said aloud.

“Bugger it,” said Porthos, pushing her aside from the door. “We’d better move fast, before she signs something she’ll regret and gets herself all spiritually enlightened.”

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.

Watching New Who: The Doctor’s Wife

David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all.

We are working our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, and sometimes a couple of extra episodes we love as our blogging points. Just for fun!

Find Tehani’s post here, and David’s post here.

“The Doctor’s Wife”

Series 6, Episode 4

The Doctor – Matt Smith

Amy Pond – Karen Gillan

Rory Williams – Arthur Darvill

Suranne Jones – Idris/The TARDIS

TEHANI:

So, much as we could happily talk all day about different episodes, we’re going back to our original remit of Hugo Award nominees, season openers and closers and specials. That means we’re skipping “Curse of the Black Spot”, which most conventional fandom wisdom will have you believe is a really rubbish episode, a condemnation I actually quite disagree with, but we’re not TALKING about that one, so that’s okay!

DAVID:

Pirates and swords and sirens, what more can you ask for? I quite liked “Curse of the Black Spot”, which just goes to show I continue to be completely out of touch with conventional fan wisdom!

TEHANI:

Say it with me: “Conventional fan wisdom can bite me”!

DAVID:

I also love that whooshing sound deadlines make as they fly past! (with apologies to Douglas Adams, of course).

TANSY:

I’ve come to appreciate the Dread Pirate Episode because it’s Raeli’s favourite of this season, and it has Kenny from Press Gang in it, but mostly because of Amy in THAT outfit.

TEHANI:

It’s a sincerely awesome outfit.

And here we are, at the episode that started it all for me. Not that it’s WHERE I started watching, but it is WHY I started watching.

TANSY:

Ah, I remember it well. Neil Gaiman has a lot to answer for

TEHANI:

He does indeed…

If there is one thing Moffat does well, it’s seeding teeny pieces of narrative along the episodic arc to lead towards a climactic ending. Amy’s observation that the Doctor wants to be forgiven for what he did to the Time Lords, SO MUCH FORESHADOWING!

For me, the best part of this story has to be the performance of Suranne Jones as Idris/The TARDIS – she is astonishing, and has forever enshrined in the minds of fandom what the consciousness of the TARDIS looks and sounds like. It’s a bonus that she looks like a character from a steampunk story… Cosplay ahoy!

DAVID:

Idris is a fascinating character, and Suranne’s performance is wonderful. I love the idea of a TARDIS being a living creature, though it is not a particularly new idea. It’s certainly something I have come across in the novelisation/New Adventures (after writing that, I tried to track down what I was talking about, but I think I may have gotten the character confused with I. M. Foreman. I seem to remember the Doctor meeting a woman on a hill who had a universe in a bottle. Perhaps our Who expert, Tansy, can shed some light?).

TANSY:

I had stopped reading the New Adventures/EDAs regularly by the time the intelligent and humanoid TARDISes entered the story, though I have read one or two featuring the companion Compassion who was actually a TARDIS-in-waiting, I think. Still, getting to meet *our* TARDIS is still a pretty big deal.

DAVID:

The twist I really liked was that the TARDIS stole the Doctor, not the other way around. It really does say volumes about the Doctor that his perception of such a foundational event is completely wrong! But, we all suspect that we have never gotten the *true* story of how the Doctor came to be travelling the time-space continuum, right? But, the TARDIS being a living creature really does make sense when you look at their interactions over the years. The Doctor has always treated the TARDIS with a fondness, and always tried to cajole rather than command, that speaks of more than simply the sort of anthropomorphisation directed at ships or cars.

TANSY:

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. (though I have to say, it’s more common than it used to be) I loved that our TARDIS became so real in this story, and that it added something so enormous to the mythology.

DAVID:

I always enjoy stories that explore the nature of the TARDIS, and its ability to reconfigure itself – sorry, herself! I think one of the reasons I fell in love with Doctor Who was this idea of such an amazing craft. More than just a spaceship, bigger on the inside than on the outside, it is the sort of thing that a young viewer finds hard to resist. The only other craft I think of that filled me with even a fraction of the same yearning was the spaceship from Flight of the Navigator!

One trick I think they missed, though, was when they go to the spare console room. That would have been a perfect moment to break out one of the Classic consoles, and the old white walls. In a show with the rich historical fabric of Doctor Who, it’s touches like that which can really “show” not “tell” those links with the past.

TANSY:

I agree with you on this one – it must have been a production decision, but the story calls so hard for the white walls with roundels, and I’m sure that’s what it will look like in the imaginary Neil Gaiman novelisation that we’re never going to get to read.

DAVID:

There were some great scenes in this episode, too. When the Doctor opens the cabinet and discovers he has been tricked, you can see the hurt and sadness and RAGE. It’s at that point I almost felt sorry for House because I knew that it was in for a world of hurt. Almost.

TANSY:

I was disappointed too! Any hint that we’re going to get Time Lords in the new show brings a frisson of excitement with it (yes even after The End of Time) and the idea that so many have been horrifically disposed of is very sad.

Worth a shout out for a couple of interesting details: previously-never-mentioned-before Time Lord the Corsair is namechecked in this episode (aww they do love their definite particles) and specifically mentioned as a Time Lord who changed gender with regeneration. This is the first mention of this possibility in TV canon. Also, the little white flying communication boxes are a thing from 1969 classic story “The War Games”. It had previously been teased that this episode would include SOMETHING we hadn’t seen since that story, and the little boxes were a bit disappointing for those of us who were peering suspiciously at the characters to figure out which one was The War Chief, or Lieutenant Carstairs.

TEHANI:

Personally, given my own connection with this story, I’m a bit surprised I don’t have more to say about it! I think it’s mostly “gleeful flail” when I think about the episode, without a lot of critical view. I always have to double check that House isn’t voiced by Neil Gaiman (it isn’t, it’s another one of those delightful sounding British (Welsh) actors).

I wonder how different the episode would have been if they had managed to get it into season five instead of this one, as was originally intended? What would that have done to that season (which we all quite like) as a whole?

“The Doctor’s Wife” won the Hugo AND the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation – how much of that do you think is the “Neil Gaiman effect” and how much is due to the episode itself, do you think?

DAVID:

That is interesting! The first thing that comes to mind is that I don’t think that it would have deserved the Hugo in Season 5, as I don’t think it is stronger than a number of episodes from that season. It’s certainly a very good episode, but I am not sure it is a GREAT episode.

Which does lead on to your next question. It is a bit hard for me to comment as I am not far enough into the season to say if this is the best episode in Season 6, and whether it deserved the Hugo (which is a very subjective call, anyway!) over any of the others. To be honest, I hope it’s not the best, because I loved Season 5 and can think of four episodes from it off the top of my head that are better than this one.

Neil Gaiman certainly does have a massive fan base, but you’d like to think people vote beyond that, and if something wins it obviously resonated with lots of people. So, maybe it’s just me! Looking at the other entries, there are two other episodes of Doctor Who and an excellent episode of Community (another show I got on very late!). With all due respect to Chris, who is a great guy, I don’t think an acceptance speech should have been nominated, let alone won. So, is this better than the other two episodes, or the Community one, or did the Gaiman Effect push it over the line? I’ll probably have a better idea by the end of the season.

TEHANI:

And I have to say something about the title – designed just to set the fannish tongues wagging?

DAVID:

Well, it doesn’t take much, does it?

TANSY:

Another piece of fannish history here – this title first got used in the 80s as a deliberate fakeout, left on a whiteboard to see if anyone on the production team was leaking info to the fanzines. So it started out as a provocative tease and is being used here in just the same way. If you haven’t seen it before, the point at which you realise that this episode isn’t about River Song but about the TARDIS is pretty awesome and brain-explodey.

Anyone have any favourite lines from this very quotable story? I think mine is still Amy with “Did you wish very hard?” but Idris has so many gorgeous things to say, like “Biting’s excellent. It’s like kissing. Only there’s a winner.”

DAVID:

That is a marvellous line. Any writer would also agree with “Oh tenses are difficult, aren’t they?” but I thought Amy showed exactly how well she knows the Doctor, summing him up perfectly when she responds to Rory saying “He’ll be fine. He’s a Time Lord.” with: “It’s just what they’re called. It doesn’t mean he actually knows what he’s doing.”

TEHANI:

I love this:

The Doctor: You didn’t always take me where I wanted to go.

Idris: No, but I always took you where you needed to go.

And this:

Idris: I’ve been looking for a word. A big, complicated word, but so sad. I found it now.

The Doctor: What word?

Idris: “Alive.” I’m alive.

The Doctor: Alive isn’t sad.

Idris: It’s sad when it’s over.

And with that, this review is over too. But we’ll be back!

PREVIOUS “New Who In Conversations”



“Rose”, S01E01

“Dalek”, S01E06

“Father’s Day, S01E08

“The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, S01E09/10

“Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways”, S01E12/13

Series One Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani

“The Christmas Invasion,” 2005 Christmas special

“New Earth”, S02E01

“School Reunion,” S02E03

“The Girl in the Fireplace”, S02E04

“Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel”, S02E05/06

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, S02E12/13

Series Two Report Cards: David, Tehani, Tansy

“The Runaway Bride”, 2006 Christmas Special

“Smith and Jones”, S03E01

The Shakespeare Code & Gridlock, S0302-03

Human Nature/The Family of Blood S0308-09

Blink S0310

Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Timelords S0311-13

“Voyage of the Damned,” 2007 Christmas Special

Series 3 Report Cards: David, Tehani, Tansy

Partners in Crime, S0401

The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, S0405 S0406

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, S0408 S0409

Turn Left, S0411

The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End, SO412-13

Series 4 Report Cards: Tansy, Tehani, David

The Specials

The End of Time

The Eleventh Hour, S0501

The Beast Below/Victory of the Daleks, S0502-3

The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone

Vampires of Venice/Amy’s Choice, S0504-5

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood

Vincent and the Doctor/The Lodger

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang

A Christmas Carol

Series 5 Report Card: Tansy, David, Tehani

The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon

Musketeers Break My Heart Seventies Style (1974)

Spoiler warning: sure the essay spoils the entire film, that’s pretty much how these Musketeer Media Monday posts go. But if you’ve been enjoying Musketeer Space without any knowledge of how the second half of the book turns out, this review might reveal a little too much simply because the Richard Lester films represent the most comprehensive adaptation of the original book in all its many fractured glories.

THE FOUR MUSKETEERS (1974)

So the first half of The Three Musketeers was adapted by Richard Lester into the film I like to call Musketeers Crack me Up Seventies Style (1973), and the second half screened a year later as The Four Musketeers (1974).

Famously, the actors did not find out that their gruelling marathon shoot was intended for two movies instead of one, and were very unhappy when they found out! It didn’t stop many of them (including at least one whose character dies in this film) signing on for a sequel in 1989, but that’s long in the future.

Things that happened in Musketeers Crack me Up Seventies Style (1973): pretty much everything that usually happens in Musketeer movies, up to and including the matter of the Queen’s diamonds, Buckingham being a fancy clothes horse who can’t keep his lips to himself, D’Artagnan being a D’ork, the Musketeer meet-cute, and a happy ending. If you’ve never seen it and the words ‘Spike Milligan as Bonancieux’ don’t convince you to do something about that, I just don’t know what to do with you.

The opening of the sequel actually gives us a ‘best of’ montage complete with a Doris Day filter to make everything floaty and dreamlike. Based on the soft lens flashback montage, these are the things that the director wants you to remember about the first film:

D’ork looks gormless a lot, Constance bumps into things, that great washing line fight scene shot from above, the Musketeers eating in bed together, the royal party hawking, Milady and Buckingham getting cozy, the Cardinal looks good in red, that one time that Buckingham and D’ork played with diamonds on a pool table, the Queen looking sad with Constance, and everyone wore white to the ball.

Got it? Good.

In case you forgot, the main Musketeer cast is as follows:

Mostly Drunk Oliver Reed – Athos

Surprisingly Old Frank Finlay – Porthos

Disturbingly Pretty Richard Chamberlain – Aramis

Fresh-faced Michael York – D’ork, the artist formerly known as D’Artagnan

Porthos is the narrator, which feels like an odd choice. It doesn’t help that he apparently thinks that all the women in the story are either stupid sluts or just terrible people (okay, he has a point about Milady).

This Porthos is a bit of an arse, actually, did they miss the memo that Porthos is usually the funniest and best Musketeer in all the film adaptations?

One of the main plot points of the film is the ongoing siege of La Rochelle, which is rather nice as most adaptations miss out all the actual military action performed by the Musketeers. To be honest, Dumas kept forgetting about those things too in favour of watching his favourite characters chat to each other in rooms, but that’s not the point.

Once we’re past the montage, the opening sequence is a rather charming action piece which has our Musketeers – well, the three ones who are awesome at stuff, anyway – rescuing the crimson-clad and eyepatched secret agent Rochefort (Christopher Lee) from the firing squad. This is cute because Rochefort has been an antagonist up to now (and will be again) largely because he takes orders from the Cardinal, while the Musketeers answer to the King (sometimes), the Queen (cos she’s pretty), and themselves.

But now, of course, France is at war so they all have to team up, and Rochefort has been caught as a spy for France. I just know the Musketeers will never ever let Rochefort forget about that one time they saved his life.

The absolute best thing about Rochefort being a spy is the fact that he is dressed all in fancy red, up to and including his eyepatch, which makes him basically the least subtle spy in the history of the universe.

The second best thing is the slightly awkward moment when a guard tries to figure out how to get a blindfold on the remarkably tall fellow in the eyepatch, and Rochefort dryly suggests that he closes his other eye instead. TEAM ROCHEFORT.

The rescue of Rochefort shows all three Musketeers and their characters off beautifully, for those who missed or might have forgotten the first film: Aramis is swashbuckling with style, Porthos thinks he is swashbuckling with style but will sacrifice competence to play the comic foil, and Athos is absent for most of it but when he does turn up, he runs rings around everyone.

We also get a lovely scene to establish the antagonists – and I do include the king in that, because he might be the focal point of Musketeer loyalty (kind of) but he causes more trouble for them than any of the villains combined.

This Louis (Jean-Pierre Cassel) is a splendid take on the character, with great emphasis on his arrogance and his ego where it comes to his awkward relationship with the Queen. While the battle rages on in the distance, he perches on a horse in his tent, posing for an official victory portrait.

Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) is understated and sinister as ever – placating the King while making plans of his own. Apart from snarky comments about his Musketeers saving Rochefort’s butt and about his lack of an eye (hey are so not sensitive about disability in these films!) the king doesn’t contribute much, leaving them to it.

The Cardinal sends Rochefort to kidnap Constance (again!) on the grounds that she is abetting the Queen’s traitorous relationship with Buckingham. Fair enough, really.

The kidnapping is an awesome piece of big screen slapstick, involving a gloved hand coming out of the melon display in a marketplace to seize Constance, a giant barrel going over her head, and D’ork falling under a wagonload of potatoes. Even better, Milady rescues him from the potatoes and smothers him in hurt/comfort.

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. I use this word very deliberately, because it gets thrown around a LOT in this movie (the 70′s are not sensitive to gender relations either), usually in reference to Constance, the Queen or Milady (but mostly Constance), and never to D’Artagnan who is utterly (mostly) shameless in his bed-hopping.

Milady lures our fresh-faced D’ork to her silver parlour, complete with a decorated monkey and a matching gown (on her, not the monkey). He trashes the place by accident, but manages to actually figure out that she is coming on to him, which shows he has grown some manly awareness since his affair with Constance. He still stumbles out of the room without getting laid, which shows that he has at least a small amount of self-restraint. FOR NOW.

Rochefort wins the creepy bath scenes in Musketeer movie sweepstakes by bleeding into Milady’s bath while she is getting undressed, and surprising her with it as soon as she is naked. It’s super gross. Even worse, she rewards him for this icky behaviour by snogging him.

Second creepiest Musketeer bath scene is Tim Curry and Gabrielle Anwar in Musketeers Are All For Love (1993).

The Duke of Buckingham is experimenting with a tiny wooden submersible ship, which is surprisingly steampunk of him. The general outcome is that it’s not much use for war, but possibly might be useful for kidnapping his girlfriend, the Queen of France. He then forgets about it for the whole rest of the movie.

Queen Anne discovers that her dressmaker Constance is missing when she needs a new dress, which shows her priorities. Constance (Racquel Welsh) is going to be missing for most of the film, which sucks considering that her turn in the first one was a work of comic genius, for which she received the Golden Globe.

When Aramis and Porthos discover that D’ork’s mistress is missing, they make fun of him for losing her which is super mean but also quite hilarious, especially when they stop paying attention to his angst altogether, and he pouts about it. A lot of their mocking is because he’s been flirting with Milady while his mistress is missing, which, fair enough. No one has faith in your fidelity, D’Artagnan!

Even better, drunk Athos then rolls down the stairs to talk about D’ork’s romantic troubles. And of course, he is challenged to talk about heartbreak so tells a story which totally happened to some guy he knew and not himself…

FLASHBACK!

Happy past Athos is very fluffy and clean-shaven, right up to the point where he finds the fleur-de-lis brand on his wife’s shoulder (which signifies she is a traitor AND a slut, apparently). At which point he basically strangles her in rage, and isn’t quite sure if he left her for dead or not. “Poor man,” he mutters to himself repeatedly in the present day, which I do not feel is the message of this story. Still, if his aim is to cure D’ork of love, then… no, I don’t feel he’s got that message across, either.

Oliver Reed, I think you are surprisingly charismatic, but your Athos is not that sympathetic.

Milady dresses for her hot date with D’ork, choosing the red necklace previously seen in the flashback with Athos, when they were totally married to each other. It’s almost like she knows they’re friends – oh wait, she does know, doesn’t she? I’m pretty sure she can’t have missed that D’ork is BFFs with her former hubby unless she really wasn’t paying attention in the first movie.

D’ork promises to be faithful to Constance but no one believes him. Sure enough, the next day he’s calling around Milady’s place with a giant flowerpot as a courtship gift. She’s not in, so he flirts with her maid Kitty, who lets slip that Milady is putting it around a bit. All very canon compliant, though it would have make him a little more sympathetic if they showed Kitty revealing that her boss is a criminal mastermind, too.

The point of this visit IS to prove Milady’s guilt and not just to prove she’s a scheming wench who might be willing to sleep with you, right, D’Artagnan? RIGHT?

Milady comes home to find Kitty very dishevelled. D’ork is half-naked in the maid’s room, because he is a terrible person who was bored for five minutes, or maybe he was rewarding the maid for information received? He leaps out the window with his flowerpot and has a second go at entering the building by the proper doors, this time ending up in bed with the right woman.

Now the super subtle investigation commences. First, he has sex with Milady. Then, when they’re all post-coital and naked, D’ork surprises Milady with a question about Constance’s whereabouts, and tries to strangle the information out of her. Much subtle. So tact.

Milady is perfectly capable of wrestling him out of bed, and goes after him with a poisoned acid dagger, a stabby dagger, and finally a pillow fight, before he’s able to get his sword. It’s amazing he’s still alive.

Wearing only a sheet, D’ork trashes Milady’s bed, (the maid’s bed already broke from over-use so he’s 2 for 2), nicks her ruby necklace and flees.

D’ARTAGNAN YOU CAD.

This is the only instance I know of that the shagging-the-maid-and-the-mistress subplot has appeared in any of the film adaptations I have seen, which generally tend towards not portraying D’Artagnan as a sex pest. I am particularly disappointed not to have seen it in the Barbie movie.

After achieving nothing much except getting laid multiple times, D’ork goes back to his friends, waving around the red necklace. Athos seizes hold of it and the two of them figure out remarkably quickly that the hot evil lady in both of their lives is the same hot evil lady.

It causes no jealousy or angst, just a gentle male bonding moment. Aww and also, a bit ew.

Athos is pretty sure that now Milady knows that D’ork knows her secret, he’s going to get completely and utterly killed and should make a run for it now, but D’ork is determined to keep looking for Constance. You know, I’m pretty sure “looking for Constance” should not be a euphemism for “banging the kidnapper” but what do I know?

I miss Racquel Welsh rather a lot in this movie.

We haven’t had an action scene for a while (except bedroom action, wahey!) so D’ork goes to talk to the Queen, but the Red Guards chase him away.

At one point he hides in a water trough breathing through a reed Robin Hood style, which would have been an awesome getaway if a Red Guard wasn’t standing over the trough as all the water leaked out, leaving our hero looking wet and silly. D’Artagnan, you are a tool.

Cardinal receives the wet and bedraggled D’ork and make an offer of employment, offering his hand of friendship quite literally and not withdrawing it even when D’ork refuses to shake it.

Come on, D’ork, don’t leave a bro hanging.

CONSTANCE IS MY FAVOURITE AND MY BEST. It’s ages since we’ve seen her, but she hasn’t changed a bit. We get a lovely sequence in which she is chained to a wall in the chateau where she’s being imprisoned. She flirts with the jailer when he brings her food, beats him up, frees herself, and is only stopped when she realises there are fierce dogs in the yard outside.

Do you know what this movie has been missing, apart from Constance? A random bathhouse scene. So Kitty the maid turns up while the boys are enjoying some private time in the steamy pools (it’s nice to know that they were considerate of the slash fans in the 1970’s) and reveals where Constance is being kept prisoner. Okay, I will concede that D’ork putting it around has proven to be useful to the plot.

It’s good to know he has a skill.

The Three Musketeers volunteer to rescue Constance for D’ork, because that’s what you do for friends, and he’s due at the siege of La Rochelle for general fighting purposes. We then get a lovely coda to the previous ‘Constance is awesome at escaping’ scene in which Aramis sneaks up on her in disguise as a jailer and gets kicked in the nuts for his trouble.

“Don’t let him get the key!” Athos shouts as Aramis fights the guards, and Constance promptly puts it down her corset. Aramis rolls his eyes “No, WE need it!” and so while the boys fight with swords, she busily shakes herself until the key finally falls out again.

Actresses are so respected in this industry, I can’t even tell you.

But then Porthos is at the window, to grab Constance and carry her across the dog-infested courtyard ON STILTS and I forgive this movie everything.

Best rescue ever.

D’ork receives a letter from his friends. Oddly it doesn’t mention anything about them rescuing his girlfriend, just that they got super drunk and got arrested and can he bail them out? Here’s some wine to sweeten the deal.

“Now thats what I call real friendship, to think of me when they’re drunk.”

The choice between drinking the wine and bailing his friends out is a tough one, but D’ork makes the honourable choice eventually – shame that it’s a TRAP.

He is cornered on a frosted, snow-lined highway beside a frozen lake. What follows is one of my favourite fencing sequences ever. I love that every major sword-fighting scene in this ridiculously pretty film has a different visual gimmick or style choice, to freshen it up and keep everyone interested. I also love the combination of humour and slapstick to liven up the fencing, so that comedy and death are constantly hand in hand.

In this case we get Rochefort and D’ork fencing on a frosty highway, and then the surface of a frozen lake, slipping all over the place in their high heels and still trying to kill each other. So adorkable.

Our three Musketeers arrive on the horizon and guess that the fight involves D’Artagnan on the grounds that it’s the stupidest place to have a duel ever. They are not wrong.

Porthos ends up in the drink with D’ork as Rochefort makes his escape. D’ork then escapes on his own, leaving Porthos wet and cold. Polystyrene ice is involved, and also a bunch of dead Red Guards.

Alarmingly, as they all warm up by the fire, Athos proves to be horribly good at torturing the chap left behind by Rochefort. I do not like this fact about you, Athos. It’s D’ork who inadvertently kills the prisoner, though, with the wine he was sent earlier that turns out to be poisoned.

The tavern at which they stay next is a beautifully designed multi-level set, which allows us to see into upper and lower rooms at the same time. This is used for a clever scene of Athos eavesdropping from above as Milady and the Cardinal arrive and discuss their evil plot to dishonour the Queen. If it doesn’t work, he wants her to put an end to Buckingham.

Milady doesn’t want him to think she goes around killing Dukes for just anyone, and her price is the death of D’Artagnan, and by association, Constance, in exchange for killing Buckingham. The Cardinal refuses to actually help her kill anyone…

“I will not assist you in private murders, madam.”

But he does provide the paperwork, a nicely vague warrant which allows Milady (or anyone else holding the piece of paper) to get away with literally anything. I wonder if that’s going to be something he comes to regret signing his name to?

Athos divides their forces up thus: Aramis and Porthos get to go protect D’ork, and he will stay and have an angsty confrontation with Milady. He sends no one to protect Buckingham on the grounds that he’s an Englishman and no one cares if he dies.

This is such a book canon perfect representation of Athos that I can’t even tell you.

OH THE ANGST.

Milady and Athos gaze scorchingly at each other, acknowledge that they both basically tore each other’s hearts out and ate them, and barely manage to stop ripping each other’s clothes off right there and then.

Athos would do anything to protect D’ork, and threatens Milady so convincingly that she hands over the warrant. He doesn’t kill her, but storms away. She’s pretty pissed off now, shaking with rage and humiliation. Is it worth mentioning at this point that the subtitle of this movie is “the Revenge of Milady”?

But in case we forgot, the Musketeers are at war and really shouldn’t be thinking about these minor duels of honour. Cut to the French army camp. Aramis sends his boots to be washed and they come back full of water, while Porthos has a maid picking lice out of his hair. How they suffer.

Athos bets another soldier that he and the Musketeers can have breakfast up on the bastion, a ruin halfway up the hill between the castle they are besieging, and the main camp. He makes Planchet pack cold chickens, bread, oysters and wine (champagne, Porthos insists) for their picnic!

They make their way up, with a whole bunch of shooting and sneaking, and Athos takes the opportunity to let D’ork in on his recent information. D’ork does not approve of the whole “Leaving Buckingham to be killed because he’s an Englishman and we don’t care” part of the plan.

Their picnic breakfast turns into a violent skirmish, because Musketeers have style, damn it. Their enemy invents a rudimentary grenade launcher, which makes things difficult, but D’artagnan invents Baguette Baseball to knock the spiky grenades back out of range, and Aramis employs champagne spray to douse the spark when the baguettes just don’t cut it any more.

They pause the skirmish by pushing a bunch of rocks on to their attackers, and high tail it back to camp just as the rest of the French soldiers are setting out for the actual battle. Nevertheless, the chap they had the bet with is pretty impressed.

“I know it’s against your principles, Athos, but have a drink.”

Milady does her usual flirt and infiltrate thing with Buckingham, but miscalculates when he arrests her as a would-be assassin. She is to be imprisoned in the Tower and shipped out to the colonies. At least she’s beautifully dressed for the occasion. White satin goes with everything, even rat-infested cells…

She’s up to her old tricks almost immediately, convincing her jailer that she is being persecuted for religious reasons, and begging him to bring her faith-related consolation. While heaving her bosom quite a lot. It is a mighty espionage bosom.

D’ork tells the Queen about the plot to kill Buckingham, and Constance’s super secret location. One of the Ladies in Waiting take special notice of this information, which possibly makes her evil.

Milady continues her dance with her jailer Felton, pretending to be terribly religious wherever he can see her, and letting him look down her dress when he thinks she’s not aware of it. She works her way up on to swooning on him, whispering desperately at how badly she is treated by Buckingham.

She seeds the idea that Buckingham is going to betray the French for love of the Queen, and heaves that espionage bosom like whoa until he gives in. Not only does she not have to row her own escape boat, but thanks to her snogging skills, she doesn’t have to assassinate her own Duke, either.

Poor old lovestruck Felton does it for her… and that’s it for Buckingham. Fun fact: Felton was indeed the name of the Duke of Buckingham’s historical assassin.

Milady and Rochefort catch each other up on the carriage back to France, in another scene that’s pulled directly from the book.

It’s kind of cute that they enjoy swapping gossip so much. He tells her about how one of his men was sent to do away with Constance, currently taking refuge in a nunnery, only to “bungle” it – that is, to not realise that Constance is a walking talking slapstick cartoon and if you try to stab her in the confessional, the confessional will end up falling over and taking out all the other confessionals too.

THIS IS HOW CONSTANCE WORKS, SHE IS A FORCE OF NATURE.

Also, the war is over, but frankly that is an anti-climax thanks to the Constance thing.

The Musketeers are going to reclaim Constance now the battle is over, but they have to get drunk first, obviously. D’ork throws some water over his head because he hasn’t been in a wet shirt for a while, and they prepare for some serious drinking and general good cheer.

Until, of course, Rochefort and Milady ride through in their Carriage of Unsubtlety and D’ork gets nostalgically angry, trying to fight the carriage, and then the horses, and yelling a lot. Athos, cool as a cucumber, leaps on a horse from a balcony thing (sir, there’s no saddle on that horse!) and they all race off after the carriage which is absolutely going to reach the nunnery before them.

It is an enormous nunnery.

It’s also, of course, a trap.

Red Guards shoot at the Musketeers as they approach, while the nuns quietly go about their business. In the midst of a speeded up swordfest with giant feathers on hats and stray sheep and goats all over the place because it’s a barnyard, Athos and Rochefort have a very serious duel. It ends with Athos a bit wounded and Rochefort in flight.

Some stuff gets set on fire, you know how it is.

Porthos ends up balanced on a plank in the upper level of the burning barn, with a Red Guard after him. His immediate reaction is to call for Aramis, which is a bit adorable, I’m not going to lie. Aramis chucks him a sword and otherwise gets on with his own duel.

Milady is dressed all in white like a nun, but unconvincing because she moves too quickly. Watch out, Constance!

Apparently Constance can’t recognise people she has had cat fights with in the past when they are wearing wimples. This is a little disappointing. Mother Superior Milady tells her D’Artagnan is coming, and they will wait for him together, whatever you need, girlfriend, I’m here for you. DON’T TRUST HER, CONSTANCE!

In case you were in any doubt that Milady is evil, her weapon of choice is a rosary. She uses a rosary to strangle Constance while dressed as a nun. Oh book canon, sometimes you and I are not friends.

Poor old D’ork is the one to find her. I know that this death happens in the book, but I LOVE the fact that the movies almost never kill Constance, and this was such a good Constance, I am most upset. Damn you, canon compliance! (My gruesome nine-year-old, for those of you who follow these things purely for her reaction, thought that the unexpected death of Constance was brilliant and made this the best Musketeer movie ever. I… have no words)

As Milady makes her escape, Athos stops her with a pistol, while D’ork goes after Rochefort. That’s probably for the best, really, given that D’ork is so not capable of finishing off Milady.

He and Rochefort take their duel into the church, despite a bunch of disapproving nuns, and fight in the glowing light of the sunshine streaming through stained glass. It’s gorgeously filmed, like everything else in this damned movie. Seriously, the cinematography is amazing.

The duel with Rochefort is a nasty, dirty scuffle, with D’ork’s hand cut open, and both of them sweaty, and grimy and miserable before they’re even halfway through. Rochefort breaks the end off D’ork’s sword and D’ork stabs him anyway, running the broken sword up through his body and into the bible. Because a sword is still a weapon without its pointy bit.

If Constance is the character whose death is most often written out of the films (though Buckingham can also give her a good run for her money in that one, most movies don’t bother to kill him either), then Rochefort is the one whose death is most often written into the story, and it’s hard to argue that it works thematically, especially with him so flat out evil in this movie.

Christopher Lee dies so well.

Though I note that the 1989 sequel to this, which I have to hunt down because it features Kim freaking Cattrall as the daughter of Milady, features Christopher Lee as Rochefort despite him very clearly dying right here. Rochefort is a vampire, you heard it here first.

Or possibly he just had such a big fanbase that someone started a Twitter hashtag #RochefortLives to bring him back in his own spin off series with a bus full of secret agents? They had Twitter in the 80′s, right?

Nah. vampire makes more sense.

Why couldn’t Constance be a vampire, she would be brilliant, all tripping over people and sinking her fangs into naughty places completely by accident. I want that sequel.

In a forest, the four Musketeers all grimly pronounce Milady guilty and have her executed. The only one who wobbles about it is D’Artagnan. The executioner rows Milady across a river, cuts her head off, then comes back and bitches about how rowing is not in his job description.

So that’s both the awesome ladies gone, then. And the Queen was given next to nothing to do in this one. Damn it.

It’s all very grim, and definitely outside the bounds of what is legal and reasonable for the Musketeers to do, so it’s fair enough really that they promptly get arrested by the Red Guards and hauled before the Cardinal.

D’ork does his best to stand up to the Cardinal but the Charlton Heston factor is pretty hard to overcome. In particular, the Cardinal’s problem with D’ork is that he has rid him of his two best agents, and is basically “too expensive for France.”

Luckily, our D’ork has hold of a warrant signed by the Cardinal himself, eh? A really nicely vague warrant that says he can do whatever the hell he likes. Or, to be exact:

“By my hand and for the good of the state, the bearer has done what has been done.”

Even Cardinal Richelieu knows when he’s beaten. He promptly provides D’ork with a commission as an officer in the Musketeers – but the name is left blank, which means he gets to pick whether to give it to himself or one of his friends.

That’s weirdly sinister, I wonder if Richelieu and Treville have a bet going on the outcome.

In any case, the film closes on our D’ork trying desperately to convince his friends that they are all more worthy than he of the commission, and them all fobbing him off because frankly, they can’t be bothered with the responsibility.

I will never again complain about a movie adaptation of The Three Musketeers going off book.

Oh, who am I kidding, I totally will.

RIP Constance.

#RochefortLives

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)

ROBOTECH REWATCH 25: Ships Fall, Everyone Dies

Robotech will be rewatched after these messages.

Try not to cry as the world is destroyed.

Even my hardboiled, steel-coated nine-year-old was slightly distressed by the death toll in this episode.

Episode 27 – Force of Arms

So this is it, the big battle is about to happen. Space is “literally stuffed” (thanks, narrator) with Dolza’s ships. After Rick sends lovebirds Max and Miriya off to their ships, he catches sight of Kyle and Minmei. On the grounds that he’s probably about to die, he confesses to Minmei that he loves her, salutes and leaves.

Minmei runs after him after shaking off that jerk Kyle, who tries to stop her.

Gloval is still wrapping his head around the fact that he is fighting alongside Zentraedi now. It’s a headspin.

Minmei catches up with Rick during his important pre-battle glove-putting-on ritual and they do the awkward pause thing a lot despite time being distinctly of the essence. She tries to apologise about the whole Kyle thing but is basically having a panic attack about feelings while Rick is noble and self-sacrificing. Nothing is resolved.

Before Rick can even get in his ship to make a smooth exit, Dolza’s forces open fire on the Earth, razing it across the entire surface. Everyone, like EVERYONE on the Earth is killed (with only a few exceptions to be revealed). Minmei mourns her parents, and Rick whispers Lisa’s name. He pulls himself together quickly, asking Minmei to sing. He has a plan.

Because yet another rendition of Stage Fright is going to put a bandaid on this apocalypse? Okay, then.

Exedore and Gloval explain to Breetai that they’re going to use Minmei as a strike force: broadcast her singing to Dolza’s entire fleet. She’s willing to do anything for the war effort. Exedore adds that he’d quite like her to do some public kissing too, as a form of psychological warfare. Minmei starts backing away slowly from the weird little man at this point, but reluctantly agrees. She’s a good girl.

Minmei is given a proper dressing room and everything, and even gets some earnest fanboys delivered to give her a shot of confidence – Rico, Konda and Bron, who thank her for her work.

Lights, camera, action.

NEW SONG.

This one’s about war. I am super impressed that Minmei came up with a song about winning the war at such short notice though frankly, one about squishy romantic feelings would probably have been a better psychological weapon. Still, this has the added benefit of cheering up the Micronian-nice-Zentraedi alliance.

Still, we must fight or face defeat.

We must stand tall and not retreat.

With our strength we’ll find the might.

There’s no fight we can’t fight together,

All together,

We can win.

Raeli is still convinced that a different actress plays Minmei’s singing voice, despite me pointing out all the documentation that it’s still Reba West, and that the internet is not wrong about these things. I have given up the argument as officially lost.

As the song fades, Minmei and Kyle act out a leaving scene complete with kissing and a bow tie (seriously Kyle, that bow tie, that is not cool, not all bow ties are cool). Dolza’s fleet all act like my grossed-out daughters (ewwww, what even is that, WHY? Yuck, bleh, aren’t they supposed to be cousins???). Rick is furious enough to kill everyone.

Lisa is alone on Alaska Base. She gets in touch with her father via a screen and he tells her the Grand Cannon is broken and everyone else is dead. She was right all along about that whole cannon business. To her horror, he is cut off and she’s pretty sure he’s dead now too.

Rick’s Skull fighter is partiallyly damaged and transforms before sinking through the Earth’s atmosphere. He is horrified to see the damage done to the Earth, and through flashback we learn that he and Minmei had a proper snog before he left. Then a signal comes through – Lisa is still alive! He heads for her to make the rescue.

“Oh Rick, I’m so glad it’s you.”

He cuts through the walls of the base and is reunited with Lisa – they are so delighted as they run into each other’s arms that the colour bleeds out of the animation, leaving them as black and white sketches. That’s the level of emotion going on here, people. ALL COLOUR IS GONE. Still no kissing, though.

Minmei’s war song continues. It’s a super long song, and/or she started it again when no one was paying attention.

The SDF1 does that trick they like to do when they punch the Daedalus aircraft carriers into the enemy ships – luckily Dolza’s fleet don’t know about it yet, so it works. Also, Khyron plans to attack Breetai because reasons. I’m not even surprised any more. Khyron walks his own walk.

Zentraedi ships are destroyed in massive numbers. The sky is basically on fire. Rick and Lisa land somewhere on the scorched Earth and have a quite moment together, watching the fighting until the explosions die down.

For a moment, they consider the possibility that they are the only survivors of the battle. Then they hear Minmei, singing the song that lasted for a whole war, and discover that the SDF1 survived. Amazingly, the humans didn’t entirely lose. Lisa has never been so glad to hear Minmei in her life. She and Rick watch the battered SDF1 descend near them and fly towards it, grinning like loons.

So yes. This was the one in which the Earth was all but destroyed, nearly everyone died, and now the hard work of rebuilding human society from scratch is about to begin. Oh, 80′s kids cartoons, you are the best.

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.

BOOK LAUNCH: Drowned Vanilla

WHERE: Hobart Bookshop, Salamanca Place, Hobart Tasmania.

WHEN: 5:30-7pm, Thursday 20 November

Kate Gordon, author of Thyla and Writing Clementine, will be launching Drowned Vanilla by Livia Day at the Hobart Bookshop. Please come and join us! There will be wine, and books, and THIS BOOK IN PARTICULAR WHICH FEATURES MURDER AND ICE CREAM.

We’d love to see you there. No RSVP required, just bring yourselves.

It’s the beginning of a hot, hot summer in Hobart. Tabitha Darling is in love with the wrong man, and determined to perfect the art of ice cream. Playing amateur detective again is definitely not on the cards—not even when her friends try to lure her into an arty film noir project in the historical town of Flynn.

But when a young woman goes missing from a house full of live webcams, and is found drowned in the lake outside Flynn, Tabitha is dragged into the whole mess— film crew, murder victim, love life and all.

There were two girls using the internet pseudonym French Vanilla, and only one is dead. So where is the other one? Why is everyone suddenly behaving like they’re in a (quite specific) Raymond Chandler novel? And how the hell did the best kiss of Tabitha’s life end up on YouTube?

Even ice cream isn’t going to get them out of this one.

Reviews of Drowned Vanilla

“Food and crime, together at last. This warm, funny book is murder á la mode.” – Kim Wilkins (Kimberley Freeman)

“A delicious, frothy confection, full of vintage frocks, murder, heart, and fun. Tabitha Day is my favorite mystery heroine in years…and she is anything but vanilla!” – Stephanie Burgis

“Drowned Vanilla is a deliciously intriguing Tasmanian tale of missing girls and murder. One of the most original crime novels I’ve read in ages, this second book in the Cafe la Femme series sparkles with Livia Day’s unique brand of murder-mystery served with a triple helping of mouthwatering desserts, vintage fashion and romantic tension. A wonderful, exuberant and quirky novel that warms your heart, makes you laugh, and keeps you turning the pages until the very last.” – Poppy Gee

Musketeer Space Part 26: Rendezvous at the Fountain of Tranquility

18453 / 50000 words. 37% done!

Wednesday is Musketeer Day! I feel like it should come with a special hat.

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 25.

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY ON MUSKETEER SPACE: Rosnay Cho beat Dana at a psychedelic computer game, made fun of her spaceship, and sabotaged her attempts to become a Musketeer. Since then, whenever Dana has seen her and her candy-coloured flight suits around Paris Satellite, Cho has been causing trouble, usually on behalf of the sinister and mysterious Cardinal. They are not friends. They will never be friends. Also, Dana was kind of hoping to hook up with Conrad Su tonight, but apparently that’s not happening either.

NOW READ ON.

This chapter is dedicated to the wonderful and glittery Kate Gordon. Thanks for your support!

Part 26 – Rendezvous at the Fountain of Tranquility

For a moment, Dana could not breathe. She was on high alert, her body reacting to the other woman’s presence as if they were about to fight to the death, but while Dana’s fingers traced the Pilot’s Slice baton that hung from her belt, Rosnay Cho made no move to attack. She leaned a hip against the glorious rock formation, and waited as if she had all night for Dana to think of something intelligible to say.

It might take longer than that.

“So I suppose we should start with the little tailor that could,” said Cho, in that low, confident drawl of hers that had driven Dana to the point of rage back on Meung Station. Now it just made her want to curl into a ball of embarrassment. “I’ll admit, I was expecting to find him here with his pants around his ankles. Any thoughts on that?”

Dana lifted her chin. Oh yes, there was the sting of anger that Cho usually aroused in her. Much better than shock and fear. “I haven’t seen him today.”

“Stood you up,” said Rosnay Cho, almost sounding sympathetic. “That’s a damned shame.”

“What are you talking about?” Dana couldn’t be standing here in the Palace gardens having a conversation about her love life with Rosnay freaking Cho. It was simply impossible. She must have fallen asleep. Spacelag could do that to a person.

“Because he’s not in the Palace,” said Cho with a brief shrug of her shoulder. “And it wasn’t me who abducted him this time. Bad news for Conrad Su – because my orders have always been to keep him alive.”

Despite the surreal nature of the conversation, Dana’s throat caught at that. “You think he’s dead?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. But I know that nothing short of abduction would have kept him from this cute little dance you two have been practicing together.” Cho made a hand gesture that wasn’t exactly filthy, but was a little too descriptive for Dana’s nerves to stand. “The Cardinal doesn’t know where he is, the Prince Consort doesn’t know where he is, his wife never knows where he is, and now you are just as clueless as the rest of us. That’s a worry.”

Dana gave up on trying to make sense of the fact that Rosnay Cho was here, talking to her like they were allies. She dropped to the ground, stretching out her legs, because standing and pacing wasn’t working for her anymore and sitting meant she was less likely to lose her temper and try to punch Cho in the nose. “Do you have any suspects?”

“One or two ideas,” said Cho, looking down her nose at her. “A rogue agent, in any case.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Cho shrugged and joined Dana on the ground, crossing her legs neatly under her as if she sat on garden paths every day of the week. “There’s a very subtle form of interrogation that they teach us about at Special Agent Academy. Not sure if you’d ever have heard of it. It’s called a conversation. I thought perhaps we could have one. No pressure or anything. I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it as we go along.”

Dana stared at her, searching for some kind of clue as to what was going on here. She saw nothing suspicious. Cho’s narrow, heavily-lidded eyes watched Dana carefully, as if she was taking in far more information than she offered in return, but she did not look or feel like an enemy.

This was wrong on so many levels.

“We’re not friends,” Dana said finally. She couldn’t access the anger she had felt at Cho in the past. After everything that had happened to her in the last week, and now the revelation that Conrad was missing again – she was nothing but numb. But that didn’t mean she was going to be an idiot.

“We don’t have to be friends,” Cho sneered at her. “We’re fucking professionals. And whatever you think of me, and my employer, we serve the Crown too.”

“The Church,” Dana corrected sharply.

Cho tensed a little at that, but her smile only widened. “The Church serves the Crown.”

“Does it really?”

“Oh, kid, let’s try to keep the paranoid conspiracy theories with hints of treason to a minimum, shall we? For once?”

“I haven’t committed treason!” Dana said hotly.

Cho looked at her for a long moment, her smile shifting into something thoughtful and not altogether nice. “Well, that’s good,” she said. “Because I haven’t arrested you for treason. It would be a terrible thing for both of us if we turned out to be wrong about that.”

A long silence stretched between them. It made Dana’s shoulder blades itch, but it didn’t worry Cho at all. She actually seemed to relax into the silence and finally brought that damned smile of hers back into play. Dana had forgotten about that smile. It should be classified as an intergalactic weapon “By the way, the trick with the pastries? That was adorable. Amateur as hell, but that’s why it worked on me. I never saw it coming.”

Amateur as hell shouldn’t be a compliment, but in Cho’s mouth it sounded exactly that – and Dana was struggling to get past the implications of ‘adorable.’ “How much do you know?” she asked finally.

“Oh, buttercup, don’t show your hand too soon,” Cho said, almost laughing at her with her eyes. “I know more than you would like about all the shit you’ve been up to since you got to Paris. But I know less than I would like. That’s why this conversation is oh so necessary.”

Dana had to raise some defences before it was too late. It felt more like a duel than a conversation, and Cho was winning it, hands down. “What is it that you really want to say?” she demanded. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel like exchanging banter with the bitch who flashburned me unconscious and stole my ID and credit the first time we met.”

“Interesting attempt to take the moral high ground from the scrappy little cunt who stole my Moth and abducted my engineer,” said Rosnay Cho, the words coming out as calmly as if she was saying she preferred lemon to milk in her tea. The warmth and friendly demeanour leached out of her face, leaving her a cold professional again. It was an impressive shift. Dana wished she could control her own features so readily. “This is what you need to know about me, kid. I could have destroyed you by now, if I thought you were a serious threat to me.”

“Does that mean you don’t think I’m a threat or that you don’t take me seriously?” Dana didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted.

Rosnay laughed once, a short and sharp sound. “Maybe both, but I can’t help being fascinated by what you’ll do next. It’s like watching a space crash – you can’t tear your eyes off the disaster in progress, even if it makes you feel sick to your stomach.”

Okay, now Dana knew she was being insulted.

“You’re dangerous,” Cho conceded. “You’re definitely that. But mostly you’re dangerous because you’re so bloody new at this, you don’t even know what the rules are. Shutting you down now would be like kicking a puppy for peeing on the floor.”

Definitely, thoroughly insulted.

“But if the Cardinal asked you to – shut me down,” Dana pushed. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

Cho looked tired. “The Cardinal is not your friend right now, D’Artagnan. But that doesn’t mean she is your enemy. If I were you, I’d make a little effort to keep it that way.”

“Milord De Winter,” Dana blurted out.

That at least had an effect on her partner in this so-called conversation. Rosnay Cho’s face went very still. “Go on,” she said steadily. “What about him?”

“He’s one of the Cardinal’s agents, isn’t he? He works with you.”

Having Cho’s full attention was more distressing than she had imagined. Dana tried not to swallow or blink or reveal in any way how nervous she was in the face of that steely gaze. She didn’t want to provide any more entertainment if she could help it. A puppy who pees on the floor. That’s what she thinks of me.

“I’d classify Milord as freelance, if anything,” Cho said finally. “He’s done some work for the Church, some work for the Crown. I’ve never attempted to parse his loyalties one way or the other. He’s ruthless and he’s useful, except when he has his own agenda going, which is most of the time.”

“Could he be – the rogue agent?” It was a thought that had been flying around in Dana’s head since Cho first mentioned that Conrad was missing. Vaniel de Winter was here; he had been at the Palace last night. Was that a coincidence? Was he really here because of his sister or the Marquise de Wardes? If he knew who Dana really was and what she had been doing – if he knew as much about Dana and Conrad as Rosnay Cho obviously did -

Cho pressed her lips together, giving the matter some serious thought. “Do you have any reason to think he might be?” she asked finally.

“I met him, that’s all. When I – recently.” She was not going to admit to the matter of the diamonds, not even if Cho knew every single detail. “He didn’t know who I was.”

“Oh, buttercup,” said Cho, as if she felt sorry for her. “If you believe that, you’re more green than I thought.”

Dana’s comm trilled. She tapped it automatically, hoping to hear Conrad’s voice, some sign that he wasn’t in trouble, that some ordinary mishap had kept him from fulfilling his promise to her.

Instead, Planchet’s voice sounded in her ear. “Chief! I have a location for Porthos now. And some sort of ransom request.”

Dana blinked. “Ransom for Conrad?”

“No, for Porthos. Has Conrad been kidnapped again? Madame Su’s going to be so pissed off.”

“Maybe. Don’t tell her anything yet. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Flight plan filed?”

“Done and done,” said Planchet, sounding gleeful. “I told the Madame I was going to visit my mother for a week. She threw a wobbly but then I let her dock my pay and she cheered up a lot.”

“Good, thanks. Sorry about the pay thing. See you soon.” Dana stood up, stretching her legs. At this rate she was going to have to become a Musketeer purely so she could ensure someone was paying Planchet a salary. “I have to go.”

“Of course,” said Rosnay Cho, letting her shoulders rise and fall in something like a shrug, but far more elegant. “Find your friends, bring them home. I’m not going to stop you.”

“Why not?” Dana couldn’t help asking.

Cho raised an amused eyebrow at her as she rose to her feet. “No one’s paying me to stop you, kid. Not yet, at least. I’d move fast, if I were you. You never know when that might change.” They were back to that odd, friendly politeness and it was completely doing Dana’s head in. Rosnay Cho piled on the surreal by extending a hand towards Dana as if they were respected colleagues.

Dana shook her hand, feeling a tingle of warmth at the connection. Tonight could not get any weirder.

But no, that wasn’t true, because Cho then leaned in, brushing her mouth against Dana’s cheek in an intimate gesture that felt a lot like a kiss. “If Milord has your boyfriend,” she whispered near Dana’s ear. “I’m sorry, buttercup, but you’re not getting him back.”

Then she released Dana’s hand, and walked away across the palace gardens without another word.

“So,” Dana muttered to herself once Rosnay Cho was gone and she was left alone with the Fountain of Tranquility. “That was a thing that happened.”

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.

The Contents are on the Table

Several exciting Tables of Contents were released in the last week, that I’m invested in one way or another.

Uncanny Magazine #1 is available for purchase now! Some free content has been released on the blog this week and some will go up in December. But you can read the whole thing now as a complete ebook.

Featuring new fiction by Maria Dahvana Headley, Kat Howard, Max Gladstone, Amelia Beamer, Ken Liu, and Christopher Barzak, classic fiction by Jay Lake, essays by Sarah Kuhn, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Christopher J Garcia, plus a Worldcon Roundtable featuring Emma England, Michael Lee, Helen Montgomery, Steven H Silver, and Pablo Vazquez, poetry by Neil Gaiman, Amal El-Mohtar, and Sonya Taaffe, interviews with Maria Dahvana Headley, Deborah Stanish, Beth Meacham on Jay Lake, and Christopher Barzak, and a cover by Galen Dara.

All of that plus two podcasts!

My essay in Uncanny is called Does Sex Make Science Fiction “Soft?” It’s really exciting to be part of the first issue!

Speaking of exciting, the next Table of Contents to talk about is super extra exciting because I MADE it – Tehani and I have announced the final TOC for Cranky Ladies of History, which we’ll be releasing early next year after our crowdfunding campaign back in March.

We are bouncing madly to be able to introduce these fantastic stories to people!

“Charmed Life” by Joyce Chng

“Neter Nefer” by Amanda Pillar

“Theodora” by Barbara Robson

“Hallgerðr Höskuldsdóttir / For So Great a Misdeed” by Lisa Hannett

“The Company of Women” by Garth Nix

“Hallowed Ground” by Juliet Marillier

“Little Battles” by LM Myles

“Bright Moon” by Foz Meadows

“The Lioness and Her Prey” by Laura Lam

“Queenside” by Liz Barr

“Look How Cold My Hands Are” by Deborah Biancotti

“The Gift of Freedom” by Dirk Flinthart

“Glorious” by Faith Mudge

“The Pasha, the girl and the dagger: The story of Nora of Kelmendi” by Havva Murat

“Mary Mary” by Kirstyn McDermott

“Vintana” by Thoraiya Dyer

“The Dragon, the Terror, the Sea” by Stephanie Lai

“Sacagawea” by Jane Yolen

“Another Week in the Future” by Kaaron Warren

“Due Care and Attention” by Sylvia Kelso

“Cora Crane and The Trouble with Me” by Sandra McDonald

“A Beautiful Stream” by Nisi Shawl

“Oodgeroo is Not Yet Your Name” by Liz Argall

As if all that wasn’t enough, the announcement for Companion Piece, the latest of the Mad Norwegian “Chicks Dig” Doctor Who essay collections has gone up officially – this new book in the series is edited by my co-Verity LM Myles, and our own Aussie Liz Barr. It’s coming out in April next year, the lineup of writers is fantastic, and I can’t wait to find out who is writing essays on which companions.

Mine is a piece called “Sara Kingdom Dies At The End” about one of the more obscure and deeply amazing 1960′s companions, as played by Jean Marsh. It looks in depth at The Daleks Master Plan, one of the BEST DOCTOR WHO STORIES OF ALL TIME NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS, so also touches a little on Katarina (the first companion ever to die), and Steven Taylor (the surprisingly feminist astronaut). But mostly it’s about how Sara Kingdom is amazing and the loss of the visual impact of her deathglare and her eyebrows is a media tragedy.

ROBOTECH REWATCH 24: Provocative Pairing Rituals.

It’s all kicking off in Robotech – within an episode or two, the entire premise of the show is about to change. This one’s all about a meeting of the minds, and military secrets.

Episode 26 – The Messenger

The Zendraedi are approaching again, and so the humans on the SDF1 get their big gun ready, same as always. To their surprise, they get a message that the Zentraedi want a ceasefire and to actually… talk. Peacefully.

Naturally, Khyron takes this opportunity to try to attack, but Breetai’s Zentraedi fire on him until he behaves himself.

Rick is seriously weirded out at having to escort a Zentraedi pod ship directly to the SDF1.

On the podship, Exedore has been Micronised and is ready to visit the SDF1, though his guard is still super big.

Exedore introduces himself as Minister of Affairs upon arrival. His giant-sized pilot is asked to remain at the ship, and to their horror, a couple of human soldiers are asked to bring him a snack. They’re left trying to figure out how to acquire the world’ biggest sandwich.

Exedore is delighted at getting a chance to see Macross City, showing off his limited knowledge of how shopping and money works. He is startled by the appearance of a girl in a bikini on a billboard, but his questions only make his escort uncomfortable. They agree that it’s obviously a military secret.

Exedore is also really into the orange juice that is poured for him at the meeting. It is delicious!

At the meeting, Miriya is startled when Exedore greets her rather cheerfully. Max is a bit insulted by Miriya’s discomfort around discussing her marriage, and sulks. Rick apparently got no memos at all and is all ‘What is going on here?’

“I found your pairing ritual quite provocative.”

Exedore tells it like it is.

Exedore recognises Max and Rick from that time they were prisoners and he interrogated them! Great times.

Konda, Rico and Bron turn up too, and are terrified that Exedore is here to take them back, but he reassures them.

Before the meeting can begin, Exedore requests two more delegates to join the talks – Minmei and Kyle, whom he believes to be masters of psychological warfare. In order to make it quite clear who he means, he mimics Minmei’s singing and dancing with a terrifyingly camp rendition of Stage Fright.

Everyone is traumatised.

No one can unsee it.

Kyle is cranky about being brought to a meeting (first world problems dude) because he’s ‘tired of being pushed around by the military’ – it happened ONE TIME, seriously.

Lisa on Alaska Base (I’ve been calling it Antarctica Base before now, oops, there’s my southern hemisphere bias showing) is working away at her new job. She chats to her Dad about how she’s heard about the ceasefire with the aliens and is hoping that means they won’t have to use the Great Cannon. He basically pats her on the head and tells her how cute and innocent she is.

In the peace talks, Exedore asks Kyle’s military rank and has the whole movie thing explained to him. It’s not real, and Kyle does not have superpowers. Really.

This is, by the way, a hell of an admission from Gloval – the misunderstanding was quite a military advantage for them. But of course we’re moving on here – and they need to make friends fast.

Exedore accepts the whole fake movie thing, but refuses to drop the issue of the obvious power of Minmei’s song. Everyone agrees that her singing is pretty rad. Exedore explains that exposure to another culture once came close to destroying the Zentraedi. He suspects that once his report is made, high command will launch an attack on the Earth after reclaiming the protoculture factory that they believe is somewhere on the SDF1.

In fact, they might not wait for his report.

His advice to the SDF1 is to leave the star system now while they still can. When Gloval tells him they can’t leave the Earth which they are sworn to protect, Exedore admits that the main fleet (another 4 million ships, led by Dolza) are on their way, and they’re likely to be attacking Breetai and Azonia’s forces because they are believed to be contaminated. It’s freaking him out, and he wants to join forces with Gloval’s people to “win” – that is, to get out of the situation with some of them alive.

On Alaska Base, Lisa realises that the SDF1 is about to be sacrificed as a decoy, and begs her father to let her go back to the ship so she can be with her real crew, even if they’re about to die. He refuses, and makes her cry.

The Zentraedi leaders have a tele-conference. Breetai and Azonia make the sensible decisions, and turn off Khyron’s screen when he starts ranting with his usual ‘I will destroy you’ rubbish.

Exedore and Gloval make plans for the upcoming fight. Exedore asks Minmei to sing something inspiring, and she goes with ‘To Be in Love.’

The main fleet starts popping into the sky around the Earth, defolding from hyperspace. There’s so many of them that the planet is blanketed in green.

NO ONE PANIC.

Oh, wait.

EVERYONE PANIC.

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 25: A Love Letter To Absent Friends

It’s Musketeer Day, and also Nanowrimo!

8126 / 50000 words. 16% done!

Musketeer Space is of course my Nano project – so once again I am totally doing a non authentic version of the challenge – ah, one day I will have the leisure to write a novel out of nowhere, but this is not that day. This is never that day.

I’m hoping by the end of it to have a zillion more chapters written. Well, ten or so, plus the Christmas story that apparently wants to be a novel in its own right. But a zillion would be nice. A big milestone this week – I finished drafting Chapter 31 which will appear in December and marks the halfway point of the story! Musketeer fist bumps for everyone!

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 24.

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY IN MUSKETEER SPACE: The first time Dana saw Milord De Winter, he was meeting Special Agent Rosnay Cho in a seedy bar on Meung Station. She later heard his name in association with Conrad Su’s kidnapping, and again with the Matter of the Diamonds. The Duchess of Buckingham warned her that ‘Winter’ was an extremely dangerous enemy. The second time Dana saw Milord De Winter, she didn’t recognise him at all… until it was too late. It’s complicated, okay?



NOW READ ON.

This chapter is dedicated to Bethwyn Walker. Thank you so much for your support of Musketeer Space! Happy reading.

Chapter 25: A Love Letter To Absent Friends

Dana felt lightheaded as she left the Palace, by the proper entrance this time, heading for the Mecha squad shuttle in the hope of getting a berth back to Paris. Sleep was what she needed. Sleep, and a message from each of her three best friends telling her they were alive and well.

But she would settle for sleep.

She could still feel the imprint of Conrad’s fingers upon her, the rough press of his tongue against hers, and the almost painful ache as they dragged themselves apart from each other again. She wanted him so badly, and waiting until tomorrow night felt like it might break her into a thousand pieces.

Sleep was looking seriously unliely.

Dana swung out of the main doors and clattered down the steps, happily invisible among the glamorous peacock and diamond guests who didn’t even look twice at her with her battered flight suit and pilot-short hair. She was obviously no one of importance, and she liked it that way.

Dana dodged several frocks lined with feathery collars, only to collide fully with a man in a dark purple evening jacket and light grey shirt. “Oh!” she exclaimed as she had the breath knocked out of her, and then again, more quietly, as she realised in whose arms she had accidentally thrown herself. “Oh. Milord De Winter.”

Vaniel still had his arms around her, thrown out to stop her falling down the steps, and he made no move to release her. His serious face roamed over hers quite curiously. Grey eyes, she realised. She had never noticed them before, but they were the same shade of grey as his shirt She imagined they looked even more piercing when he wore his hair bright silver as he had on Meung Station. “Miss Charlemagne,” he said in greeting, and there was a note of question in the name.

Did he know? she thought in a sudden panic. If Milord was as devious and powerful as Buck had implied, how could he not know who she really was, and what her mission had been?

“Um, yes,” she said, and smiled brightly, remembering the carefree persona she had taken on during their ride on the bullet train. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“It’s a flying visit,” he said, drawing back so that he was not holding her quite so intimately, though his hand still brushed her waist. “Bee wanted to attend the ball, and I heard that the Marquise de Wardes was likely to be here, so… two birds with one stone.”

“Of course,” Dana said. “Something political,” she added with a wry smile.

Vaniel returned the smile easily, and for a moment it was easy to believe he was exactly what he had seemed to be, in the first class carriage with his chattering sister-in-law. “You have not dressed as formally as everyone else,” he added.

There was no denying that she didn’t look at all like the Alix Charlemagne he had met on the bullet train. And yet he had recognised her without the wig and fripperies.

“I’m in disguise,” she said, twinkling at him. It was a source of great shame to her that she had discovered her inner twinkle, when pretending to be Alix. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t use it in the field, when there were no other weapons within reach.

“Ah.” Vaniel – no, Milord – looked amused. “I won’t ask, then.”

“Better not.”

They looked each other over for a moment more, and then the formal politician in him took over. He stepped aside, and gave Dana an officious nod. “I did not think our paths would cross again so soon.”

“You never know what the solar system has in store,” she said, trying not to let any of her nervousness show in her face or her voice.

“Indeed,” replied Milord De Winter.

They bowed to each other again, and then Dana moved awkwardly around him so that he could head up the steps and into the Palace.

If De Winter had anything to do with the matter of the Prince’s diamonds, he was far too late to do anything about it. Dana had beaten him, and Rosnay Cho, in one night.

Smiling to herself, she hurried off to catch a tram back to the nearest space dock. The sooner she was back on Paris Satellite in her own bed, the better she would feel.

Even if Paris without her three Musketeers was not Paris at all.

Dana slept for twelve hours straight. She had not meant to, but the adrenalin and stress and frustration had finally caught up with her. One moment she was clenching her fists tightly with the memory of how much she had wanted to forget about Palace protocols and morality clauses in employment contracts and just suck Conrad Su’s cock into her mouth, and the next she was lost in the strangest dreams of fencing footwork and crashing spaceships, and memories that did not belong to her at all.

When Dana awoke in her little box of an apartment, she stared for a moment at the blank white ceiling, not sure if she was on a solarcrawler, bullet train or venturer. She was not even convinced that she was Dana D’Artagnan.

It took some minutes to convince herself that she was really in her own bed, above Madame Su’s workshop. She had seven hours before she was due to meet Conrad at the Fountain of Tranquility, and she had to make those hours count.

No more distractions or regrets or heated fantasies. Today was about the loyalty she owed to her friends.

After a brief sonic shower, Dana headed out to the workshop. Madame Su was nowhere in sight, but Planchet was tinkering away with her heap of mecha that looked a lot closer to being actual completed suits than they had a week earlier.

“Hey chief,” Planchet said, her face open with joy as she saw Dana emerge. “Back in one piece, then?”

“I am,” Dana said, leaning on the balcony and stretching her neck. “I lost track of the others along the way, though. Can you help me collect them?”

“Of course, what do you need?”

Dana’s eyes flicked to the closed office door.

“She’s not here today,” Planchet said cheerfully. “Appointments down on Lunar Palais.”

“That explains why you’re calling me ‘chief’ while standing in the workplace of your actual employer who pays you actual credit.”

“Exactly!” said Planchet. “So I can help, right?” She set a large metallic arm down on the floor and looked eager to start.

“First things first,” said Dana. “I need to trace Porthos, Aramis and their engies. Which means finding out if any of them got arrested along the way to Valour, or if they’re hiding out. I need a new comm stud that can’t be traced to either you or me, access to the private databases of the Church as well as the Royal Fleet and any hospices between here and Valour. And I need a lot of coffee.”

“Is that all?” said Planchet. “That doesn’t seem like a lot.”

“Good,” said Dana, trying not to feel too cynical in the face of Planchet’s youthful exuberance. “You start with that list, and I’ll around to their apartments and see if they’ve made it home under their own steam.” It would be terrible to set off on an entirely unnecessary jaunt back to Valour just because she hadn’t bothered to use the high tech method of knocking on doors.

She had spent far too much time sitting in recent days – first the train and then the venturer. Walking off her nervous energy across Paris was a good place to start.

Dana had not expected Athos and Grimaud to be home yet, given the shape of the Parry Riposte when she had last seen them, so Dana went to their apartment first to get the disappointment out of the way. Aramis was possible. Surely if she hadn’t been too badly wounded, a medipatch or two would have her back on her feet by now, and she might have made it back to Paris…

Porthos was the wild card. Dana had absolutely no idea what had happened to her after the Calais. Perhaps she had been arrested? Or wounded, like Aramis? Or…

The lack of comm contact between them all was distressing Dana more than she liked to admit. Once she had a clean stud, she could risk getting in touch even if they were in Church custody. But why had none of them reached out to Dana before now?

Athos’ apartment was empty. It was weeks now since Dana had collected the entry code from Porthos, who had no compunction about sharing it – Athos’ drinking meant that all of them had needed to help him get home at some time or another, and it also allowed for waking him up for duty when an electronic alert wasn’t enough.

Dana looked around, feeling a little guilty for being there. But not so guilty that she didn’t steal one of his jackets – a blue one that looked even more like a Musketeer jacket than the grey ‘terrible spy’ jacket he had worn on their mission. You could almost see the outline where there should be a fleur-de-lis symbol on the back.

She would return the jacket to him when he had proved to her satisfaction that he hadn’t managed to get himself killed.

No one replied at Aramis’ apartment either. Dana couldn’t bring herself to leave straight away, and she didn’t have the code for entry. She leaned her forehead against the door, willing her friend to be inside complaining about her broken heart, or inhaling too much poetry.

Dana had not been this long without talking to Athos, Porthos or Aramis since they first dragged her into their company. She missed them so much. And while she trusted in their sense of self preservation, she couldn’t help worrying that at least one of them might be lost for good thanks to her, and the mission she had accepted on behalf of them all.

Could she ever forgive herself, if Aramis or Porthos had been fatally wounded? Or their engies? Athos had still been so worried about Grimaud, when Dana abandoned them. How would he cope if she didn’t make it?

The guilt had set in now, good and proper.

As Dana turned to leave Aramis’ door, she heard bootsteps nearby and her heart lifted for a moment as a Musketeer rounded the corner in full dress blues. But the short blond hair and light skin was a dead giveaway that this was not Aramis.

It was, in fact, Captain Tracy Dubois. She looked just as disappointed to see Dana standing there as Dana was to see her. “Oh,” she said. “I had a proximity alert placed on Aramis’ door so I’d know when she got back. She’s not with you, then?”

“No,” said Dana, taking a moment to marvel at the level of stealth technology that Aramis’ girlfriend had been willing to utilise to keep an eye on her. Only, weren’t they supposed to be ex-girlfriends now? Interesting. “She’s not back yet. I’m – setting out to collect her, tomorrow.”

Worry flickered across Dubois’s face. “What went wrong?”

“I can’t talk about that.”

“Of course. I know the score.” Dana realised belatedly that Dubois probably knew exactly what the mission was about, as Conrad had asked her to take the letter first. Still, it was in both of their interests not to say anything aloud in an unsecured corridor.

They stood there for a moment, equal contributors to the awkward pause.

“Would you give her something for me?” Dubois blurted suddenly, her pale cheeks flaring red with embarrassment. “A letter.”

“Of course,” said Dana, holding out her wrist to accept a shared file, stud-to-stud. Instead, Dubois reached into her own flight jacket and pulled out a flat, crinkling object. An actual envelope, which felt brittle in Dana’s fingers as she accepted it.

“She likes paper,” Dubois said, shifting back and forth on her feet.

“Yes, she does,” Dana smiled, remembering the heavy poetry and theology books that smelled like dust and dryness.

“Don’t let her burn it or anything, before she’s read the contents. She can be dramatic.” Dubois had recovered some of her usual snark, and even managed to roll her eyes. “But I was wrong, to end things like I did. And I miss her. Will you tell her that, if you get the chance?”

“I’ll do my best,” said Dana, tucking the letter securely in the pocket of Athos’ jacket.

Porthos’ place next, which was the worst of all because she was the one most likely to be here – with Bonnie at her side, how could she not have evaded the red guards and found her way back home?

Dana had her hopes up far too high that she would be welcomed by the scent of freshly brewed tea, and bread warm from the oven.

But neither Porthos nor Bonnie were home, by the sound of it. Dana sighed, and called through to Planchet through her comm. “Can you crack a door code for me?”

“Sure,” said Planchet without asking why. There was a pause, and a tapping sound, and then suddenly a high-pitched whine filled the corridor. Every door within Dana’s sight buzzed open, all at once.

“Just this one,” Dana hissed, hurling herself inside Porthos’ apartment and slamming it behind her. “Just this one!”

“Oops,” said Planchet. “Fixed, sorry. I have the other things you needed, by the way.”

“Brilliant, that was fast.” Porthos’ apartment had an empty coldness to it. It was usually warm, with music playing and spices in the air. The lack of Bonnie made the place feel even more sad than the lack of Porthos. Dana felt suddenly very lonely. “Planchet, are you due any leave from Madame Su? A few days, perhaps?”

“I’ve got a couple of months banked up but she’s good at thinking up reasons why I shouldn’t use it,” said Planchet. “Why – hey, do you want me to come with?”

“I suspect I’ll need your hacking skills,” said Dana. “And… I’m going to need an engie.” Unlike Athos and Aramis, Porthos’ apartment had an entire kitchen as a separate room. Dana had found what she was looking for, a small crystal keysphere hidden in a bowl of lemons.

“You’ve got a dart?” Planchet asked, her voice going up into a shrill tone of excitement.

“Yep,” said Dana, pocketing the keysphere to Porthos’ Hoyden. “I have a dart. We’re going to use it to get the others home.”

Late shift rolled around. Dana was back in the palace gardens of Lunar Palais, waiting for a rendezvous with a married man. It felt like she had a fully-charged power sphere in her stomach, reaching critical load due to sheer anticipation.

Her head was not exactly in the game. She kept checking her comm for updates from Planchet. They had mapped several possible hospices where Bazin might have taken Aramis, and nothing had come up yet. Planchet had delved far more deeply into the Church arrest records than any civilian should, and was sure that there was no arrest record for any of the missing Musketeers or engies.

That didn’t necessarily mean anything. Dana remembered the time Athos had been arrested in her name, and they had kept him from scanning his true identity even during an interrogation. But still, it was promising.

Planchet had at least located the city on Valour where Athos and Grimaud had been most recently, thanks to the salvage records of a ship that had to be the Parry Riposte.

Dana was excited by that, because it gave her the idea to track Aramis (and possibly Porthos, if they were together) via the Morningstar. Planchet was working on it. All in all, it was a lot to keep in Dana’s head. If she was thinking with her head and nothing else right now, she would stand Conrad up.

But this thing that the two of them had going, the flirting and the kissing and the hands all over each other, was more of a distraction to Dana than if they had shagged their brains out already. Getting laid could only simplify things for them both. They could burn it out of their system and get on with their lives. Right?

Conrad was half an hour late already. Had he changed his mind? The very thought of it made Dana whine with frustration.

Still, she had flight plans to review and Planchet’s comms to monitor, and what with one thing and another, she was able to distract herself while she waited to find out whether she was the one who had been stood up.

The time clicked on toward 20:00 hours, and there was nothing left to review or check. Dana thought about heading back to Paris. But the Fountain of Tranquility was aptly named. For the first time in a week, Dana had absolutely nothing to do. There was something calming about sitting here in the shadow of the dramatic rock formation, watching the Artifice water spray in careless, perfect patterns across the shadows and smooth lines.

She would give him another hour. She had nowhere else to be.

As she waited, Dana fiddled with the studs along her wrist, ending with the one that she kept close to her elbow, so that it was always covered by the sleeve of her flight suit or fatigues. The opal that the Prince Consort had given her. It was empty of information, except for a certification-file of authenticity that marked the location and creator of the jewelled stud. It was worth a lot, she knew, even without getting it formally valued.

The Sun-kissed were rising again. While Dana didn’t wish another war on the solar system, she couldn’t help but think that she was more likely to get a commission in the Musketeers during wartime. Especially if she could finance her own helm and harness. The opal was a substantial downpayment on a dart of her own, and she knew that pilots were expected to at least partly fund their equipment.

Her dream might be a little closer, one way or another.

She heard footsteps nearby, against the quartz pebbles of the nearby avenue, and a wave of warm relief and desire surged through her. He was here. He had come to her, finally.

“Dana D’Artagnan,” said a low, husky voice. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Every warm cell in Dana’s body turned cold, as if the atmosphere had been sucked out of the lunar dome all at once. That was not the voice of Conrad Su.

Instead, she saw a shadowy figure with long, flowing hair and swinging hips. And then the figure stepped into the light of the fountain, which illuminated the ragged scar that carved through her beautiful face.

It was Special Agent Rosnay Cho, radiating warmth and smugness.

This couldn’t be good.

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.