Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 55

Musketeer Space Part 21: Crashing and Burning

Musketeer Day again! I’m going to be hopping on a plane tomorrow to Perth for the last of my jetsetting plans for the year – I will be appearing (as Livia Day) at CrimeSceneWA. My GOH speech is on the Saturday and I’ll be appearing on a Twelfth Planet Press designed writing-publishing stream on the Sunday. I’m particularly looking forward to a panel on crowdfunding with Alisa and Chris.

Then on Monday 13th Oct we are holding an event for the new Cafe La Femme novel, Drowned Vanilla, at Stefen’s Books! Come along to ‘meet the author’ and my cute new book, and join us for drinks afterwards at Durty Nelly’s Irish Pub.

Time: 5:30-6:30

Speaking of Livia Day, here’s an interview I did about Drowned Vanilla with Bec Stafford at the Tara Sharp website.

Now, here’s a crashing spaceship for your reading enjoyment. And finally, a planet!

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 20.

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY IN MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana D’Artagnan has a thing to deliver to a place. She’s two Musketeers down, and now Athos is showing his lack of self-preservation in all kinds of new and exciting ways. They hooked their brains together to pilot the ship more effectively. Let’s see if that helps, shall we?

NOW READ ON.

This chapter is dedicated to Jennifer Davis. Thanks so much for your support!

21: Crashing and Burning

They were falling.

Of all the things you could possibly do with a spaceship, falling had to be one of the worst. Definitely in the top three.

Dana could not move. Her brain was swallowed up by the ship, and the ship was damaged in so many places that her thoughts were consumed by it: the cracking of the hull, the spark of broken wires, the painful burn of the defence shield as the last precious layer peeled away from the hull.

This was not good.

She could not find Athos. Had he already lost consciousness? If she reached out a hand or opened her eyes then she would see him beside her, but she wasn’t willing to lose her cerebral connection to the Parry Riposte to confirm what she already knew.

He was there. But he wasn’t here.

There was no cheerful song of flight and joy coming from the Parry Riposte. Even the ship herself was frozen in fear. Dana reached out carefully with her thoughts, remembering the first time she had ever piloted a ship in space on her own, not just piggy-backing on the flight controls of her mother. She was fourteen, and invincible.

From that moment on, she had never wanted anything but flying spaceships.

The memory buoyed her, kept her upright while she reached deeper into the ship, searching for the power spheres, the thrusters, anything to stop this horrible, stomach-churning descent.

Her memory of first flight collided with another, a memory of hands on the helm and a screen full of stars, and a first ship, a ship she had never flown before, patient and loving under her hands.

It wasn’t her memory.

“Athos,” she breathed, and pressed in deeper. His memory was so close to hers – first flight, the sickening joy of it, the knowledge that nothing else in life would ever be quite this good or simple or right.

In the real world, in the cockpit of the Parry Riposte, she felt his boot nudge against hers.

Footwork, she thought, wanting to laugh hysterically. That was what they needed after all. The perfect pattern, copying each other, mimicking the same movements until they became properly aligned.

But there wasn’t time for that, because they were falling out of the sky.

She pushed her memory fiercely against his, smashing them together. They fractured at the pressure, one memory bleeding into another. Other memories and thoughts filled her head, shattered images of space and ship and thrust and metal. Memories broke into pieces and reconnected. She couldn’t tell where she ended and Athos began.

Bare feet, walking across polished floorboards. She was stupidly in love with those feet. Who did they belong to?

This time, they reached out together, Dana and Athos as a unit. Holding together they were finally able to draw the ship upwards, out of its sheer drop. Up and up, through the blueness and into the comfort of grey.

she asked, not wanting to unsettle the balance by speaking aloud in the real world.

he sent back.

They flew straight and even now, a perfect motion of speed and grace. Everything was going to be all right, if they could fly like this forever.

Dana opened her eyes. The Parry Riposte had settled calmly in the back of her head as if this was normal, and she finally felt stable enough to look for herself, to take in her co-pilot and the visuals through the physical screen.

Athos’ eyes were open as well. He had a savage grin across his face, though there was blood running from his nose. “Catch me if you can,” he said in the real world.

They darted from cloud to cloud, surfing the sky with occasional bursts of speed followed by long slow glides that used almost no power at all.

“Here,” Athos breathed. “Like this.” Then a stab of pain roiled through him and the ship fell from his grasp.

Dana caught it, taking the lead, skimming the ship along the inner edge of the cloud. Navigation, that was what she was here for. Being his double meant more than steering the ship. “You still with me?” she murmured.

She felt a warmth inside her head, like a handshake or a formal salute before the fencing began.

They didn’t speak after that, but took turns handing the ship back and forth between them, taking point and then falling back. It was like a game, if not for the fact that she was sure he was badly hurt. They were going to have to do something about that.

Damn you, Athos. Nexus was for emergency situations and for early training, not for everyday use. Dana hated to think what kind of damage it was doing to him. Did they have enough medipatches on board to deal with this? What kind of training did Grimaud have, or would it be down to Dana to fix him?

Assuming they were all still breathing when they hit the ground.

Crash, not land. They didn’t feel like they were crashing now, but Dana had a suspicion that the Parry Riposte wasn’t revealing all of her damage to Dana as the interloper.

Athos said to her, and Dana felt a burn of complex emotions attached to that simple word, the name of a continent.

They weren’t her emotions. Athos was the one who had baggage when it came to this planet. For one horrible moment she was tempted to poke into his mind and see what came spilling out.

He’d know she was doing it. And it was a little embarrassing that getting caught was the main reason she held back.

she sent to him.

Athos corrected, as if he had never put the idea into her head that they might not come out of this all right.

She took control off him and sped ahead, refusing to toss it back to him.

His mind melted around hers, blurring them together, so his hands and hers worked together in perfect sync.

It was warm in here, the kind of heat that meant something somewhere was probably on fire. Dana found herself overwhelmed by a vision of green grass. She smelled lemons and rain, and blinked the grass away only to be caught by sight of crisp white sheets in a bright bedroom; the curve of a perfect shoulder blade; a mess of hair that looked silver in the sunlight. She could not see the man’s face, but his presence made her warm to the pit of her stomach.

“A hundred and one reasons to hate this planet,” said Athos in the real world.

Dana shook her head, blinking. “That seemed like a good memory.”

“Not from this angle.”

She threw him a memory of her own, of the miserable months she had spent on Freedom, fixing communications equipment for the miners to raise the credits for her final flying accreditations. Even the rain was grey on Freedom, grey and opaque like the minerals they dug out of the planet, and the skin of the miners who worked the surface for very long.

Athos shook his head and smiled.

There was a snap inside Dana’s head, hard and sharp. The Parry Riposte fell from her control, and Athos did not reach out to catch it.

he told her.

Athos laughed at that, a loud shout of a sound in the silent cockpit, almost buried beneath the terrifying sound of the ship’s vitals disintegrating around them.

And down they went.

Dana’s first thought as she awoke was . They had lost the final power sphere sometime just before the emergency landing which was as close to a crash as made no odds. The Parry Riposte was silent in her head, and when she reached out to tug the ship back inside herself, her senses thrumming thanks to the nexus in her bloodstream, she felt nothing.

She forced herself outside her own head to take stock of her physical state. The harness and the chair had protected her from the worst of the damage, though she was stuck in what felt like a coffin of twisted metal.

Oh, that was the roof. The roof of a spaceship should not look like that.

With a gasp, she released herself from the harness and helm, shaking her scalp free of the connections. Thank goodness Athos had let Aramis shave his damned head before getting into a crash like this, or he’d have been…

She couldn’t see Athos. She could not in fact see most of the ship, as the hull had buckled around her, and her feet were jammed up against the remains of the console, which was crumpled into an ugly shape.

He should be there, beside her, but all she could see was the very edge of his seat, and a sharp-edged wall of metal that had separated them.

Dana’s feet were wet. More than wet. Water sloshed through the ruined ship, up to her ankles. “Missed the continent,” she groaned. “That’s embarrassing – such a big – target.”

For a moment she thought one foot was trapped, but it was only her boot caught on a ragged edge of metal. Dana pulled it free, glad she didn’t have to remove the boot, and then paused for a split second to run her fingers inside and check that the stud was still burrowed into her ankle.

It would be disastrous to lose it, after all this.

The Parry Riposte creaked under her as Dana slid out of her seat and crawled under another piece of wreckage. The water levels dipped higher, wetting one of her legs up to the knee.

Sinking was bad. Sinking a spaceship was up there with falling and crashing. These were all bad things. But nothing had exploded yet. So it could be worse.

Dana made her way through the damaged dart. She found the main hatch but it had crumpled inwards and would not respond to her touch. As she moved further on, she found the slashed remains of Grimaud’s seat. The Parry Riposte lurched under her, almost flinging her into a hip-deep pocket of water.

What did she have to work with here? No arc-ray. A pearl stunner was only good for use against people, not metal. Her fingers went automatically to the baton that hung on her hip. So there was that.

This situation was exactly what the slice was for, not playing at swordfights. But something about the feel of the hilt against her fingers made Dana look at Grimaud’s jumpseat again. Someone had already been here with a Pilot’s Slice. Those slashes were too even to be accidental.

There was a definite tilt on the ship – the further back she went, the deeper the water got. But that was promising – it wasn’t filling up completely which suggested the water wasn’t as deep as she had suspected.

And maybe… yes, there. She saw a twisted bunk, the soft silver mattress pulled aside, and beyond it a gouged shape in the wall, mostly submerged in water.

She had found where the water was getting in, at least. And the escape route that Athos had left for her.

Dana didn’t hesitate. She took a deep breath and plunged forward, through the smooth lines of sliced metal, and into the water. She swam down into darkness and then up, to the fluttering pattern of light she could see on the surface.

Up and out, gasping in air that tasted like planet. Planet and – lake. They had landed in a freshwater lake.

It only took her a few strokes to reach the edge and haul herself out into a day that was strangely warm considering how much cloud they had flown through to get here. The sky was blue, an intense shade that Dana had never quite seen before, not on Freedom or Truth, the only planets she had spent any time on. Tufts of cloud swam through the sky above them, some white and some grey.

The grass was so green it hurt the eyes. They were surrounded by mountains and trees that looked like something out of a children’s fairy book. But Dana didn’t have much time to gaze at the ridiculously pretty scenery. Athos was there, only a few metres from the edge of the lake and their part-submerged ship, leaning over the body of Grimaud.

He was soaked to the skin, one hand tangled in Grimaud’s soaked star scarf as he applied the medpatch to her neck. Dana leaned into him, letting her hand brush his arm only slightly to let him know she was there.

“I was coming back for you,” he said in a low voice.

“Didn’t need you to.” She glanced back at the ship, which had not sunk any deeper into the water. It had been the right call. The wreckage was stable, and had only shifted at all once she started moving. “How’s she doing?”

“Breathing. Stable. She had a gash in her arm but didn’t lose too much blood.” He pushed away from Grimaud and buried his face in his hands. “Well, that was smooth.”

“Any landing you can walk away from…”

“Don’t. Even.” Athos wasn’t looking at Grimaud or his ship, but there was despair in his voice.

Dana gave him a swift hug from behind, her arms wrapping around his shoulders just for a moment before she released him. “Breathe. We’re down. We’re in one piece. All of us.”

It was more than she had hoped for, during their descent.

“And a brilliant story to tell Aramis and Porthos when we catch up with them,” he said, his voice sounding far away.

“That too.” Dana didn’t want to think about Aramis and Porthos, not now.

A light spray of water spattered across the back of her skin and she stared at the droplets for a moment. The heat of the day had given way to a cooler breeze, and when she looked up she saw that the clouds had more grey than white in them, and there were more of them. Dana watched, fascinated as blue bleached out of the sky.

“And now it’s raining,” said Athos. “I’ve been on this planet for five minutes, and it’s raining on me.”

Rain. Dana had felt it in virtual simulations, but never in real life. It had a breathless feel about it, as if the world was about to fly apart into pieces of water. She almost enjoyed the sensation.

“Athos,” she said, and for some bizarre reason she felt like laughing. At him, at the scenery around them, at the delicious realisation that they were alive when they should have died in a crash like that, surely. “Did you and this planet have a bad break up with each other? Is counselling required?”

“I hate this sodding planet,” he growled. “I hate being rained on. And I hate – are you dancing?”

“Just stretching,” Dana said, spinning around on the spot with her fingers and arms flung wide. “I want to see if I can move faster than the raindrops.”

“D’Artagnan,” Athos said, keeping his voice even. “You are enjoying this planet’s company far too much. Should I leave you two alone together?”

“Jealous that I’m getting on well with your ex?” Dana grinned at him, then threw herself to the ground. The grass still felt warm from the sunshine that had disappeared behind the grey clouds. “I’ve never liked a planet before. This is new.”

“It won’t last,” he said, but there was less resentment in his voice now, maybe even a flicker of humour. “Rain might be a novelty now, but wait until it’s been going for seven days, so you can’t go out, can’t walk or ride anywhere…”

“Ride?” Dana said, lifting an eyebrow. “Are we talking about live animals? What kind of fucked up New Aristocrat life did you and this planet have together?”

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that – shut up,” he said, turning back to Grimaud as she sucked in a sudden, sounding-awake break of oxygen. “Engie? Still alive?”

Shakily, Grimaud raised one hand and gave him the finger.

“Thank God for that,” Athos said, reclaiming something of his usual poise and snark. “Getting revenge on an entire planet would have been time-consuming.”

Athos was right. Grimaud was going to need to rest for some hours, and she couldn’t be left alone. Dana was well aware that what Athos wasn’t admitting was that he needed medical attention himself. When she finally slapped a diagnostic medipatch on him it had taken a full fifteen minutes to list all of the repairs that it wanted to make to his internal organs.

Dana wanted to stay with them until she was sure, but there was the mission. The platinum stud was all but burning a hole through her ankle.

“It’s not even a choice,” Athos insisted. “You need to get to Buckingham and get that bloody stud off your ankle. If you manage to collect the item you came for, you’re heading straight back to Paris without collecting us first.”

That was the worst part.

“But if I -”

“D’Artagnan,” he said sharply. “If the Sabres catch up with Grimaud and me, we won’t offer any resistance. At this point, arrest might be the fastest way home for us. If our clever ‘ditching in the lake’ plan works, however, and they don’t find us, the two of us can make our way back by the slow route. Neither of us are holding anything incriminating. We’ll be fine.”

Dana screwed up her face in frustration. She wanted to cry, but refused to do it in front of him. This was her mission, and she knew he was right. “If you’re not back in Paris before me, I’m coming to get you,” she vowed. “All of you.”

Seated beneath a temporary shelter he had rigged up from the contents of the ship’s emergency locker, with Grimaud lying on the grass beside him, Athos gave her a salute that was not entirely sarcastic. “We would expect nothing less,” he told her. “Now, get the hell out of here, D’Artagnan. You’re wasting time.”

And that was how, having already lost two Musketeers, Dana finally abandoned the third.

It felt like a terrible mistake even before she was out of his sight, but she kept on walking. It was all about the mission, now. It had always been all about the mission.

Dana was really starting to hate this bloody mission.

You have been reading Musketeer Space, by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Tune in next week for another chapter! Please comment, share and link. Musketeer Space is free to read, but if you’d like to support the project for as little as $1 per month, please visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. Milestones already unlocked include the Musketeer Media Monday posts, the Robotech Rewatch posts, and a special Yuletide prequel story to be released in December. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock ART.

ROBOTECH REWATCH 19: Make Movies, Not War

Robotech will be rewatched after these messages!

This one has a film premiere, a love square and an extra blog commentary by my nine-year-old co-conspirator in this rewatch.

Episode 21 – A New Dawn



Minmei’s movie Little Green Dragon is about to be released, and her drunken agent promises her anything she wants since she’s such a big star. She asks for a front row seat to be reserved at the premiere as a surprise for Rick.

Remember Jan, the “famous” Hollywood actress who thought she was going to win Miss Macross? She turns up in a bitchy cameo, attempting to pour red wine over Minmei’s “quaint” dress. Hilariously, because Minmei is made of diamonds and lucky unicorn glitter, the wine gets nowhere near her. Don’t mess with the Minmei, you cannot win!

Rick doesn’t get Minmei’s message until late, and tries to call her room to find out what she wants, but doesn’t get through. He misses the part about a seat being saved for him, so the next day lines up to buy a ticket like a normal person.

Kyle and Minmei are special guests at the premiere – and even though this is finally a situation in which the song “Stage Fright” is actually appropriate, it’s a bit confusing because Minmei introduces it as her NEW song. This blatant untruth actually made Ms9 scream with outrage at the television. I’m so proud of her.

The movie is an old timey kung fu drama, which comes as something of a shock to the Zentraedi who now think that the Micronians have magic powers thanks to Kyle’s character. The kissing scene also comes as a shock to the fascinated Zentraedi – and to my daughter who is not only fervently anti-romance but understandably horrified by the concept of cousins snogging.

Imagine the rest of this rewatch regularly punctuated by a deadpan 9 year old repeating “BUT THEY’RE COUSINS”.

Rick and Lisa both leave the cinema during the kissing scene and collide with each other, getting into a squabble that makes me feel almost nostalgic from the old days when they hated each other.

Lisa asks Rick why he walked out in the middle of the film and he is relieved when an emergency ship transformation is called, which means he doesn’t have to answer her.

Minmei and Kyle flee the theatre in the hope of finding a shelter and Minmei being Minmei, she immediately falls off the side of a newly-made ravine. As Kyle pulls her to safety, she hallucinates Rick doing the same thing last time this happened. At least the show isn’t hiding the fact that this happens to her all the time.

Poor old Sami is struggling to hold down Lisa’s job, panicking wildly with her first solo battle co-ordination.

Rick and Lisa attempt to get back to base (she refuses to go to a shelter because hello, they’re the military) and they end up trapped in a metallic pit, thanks to the transformation. After haranguing each other a bit they sigh and make friends instead.

Lisa freaks out a bit about Rick sulking.

LISA: I get insecure when people don’t talk.

RICK: I thought you were too tough to be insecure.

They chat about military matters, including Max and Sami’s respective skills, and Lisa is almost impressed that Rick seems to have grown a brain since then. They also share a little nostalgia about that time they rode around in Max’s giant pocket and almost enjoy each other’s company.

Rick wonders about why the Zentraedi are not just destroying them and getting on with it. Lisa shares her theory that there are two camps among the aliens, those who are holding back because they think the humans are derived from Protoculture, and those who want to destroy them. She knows internal admin failure when she sees it.

They talk about the movie then and Rick teases Lisa about her sudden social life and interest in movies. He is actually smart enough to figure out she only went because she has a crush on Kyle, and she stings back with a cheap shot about Minmei.

Having thoroughly hurt and embarrassed each other, Lisa confesses the story of her lost love, who looked just like Kyle.

Back on the bridge, Sami has acquitted herself very reasonably in covering for Lisa’s job. Her voice and the un-transformation interrupt a Moment between Rick and Lisa, who have figured out that they actually might like each other. Oops.

There’s an adorable scene in which Rick tries to Lisa her a soda from the machine and she insists on paying for it instead because she earns more. He then tries to shield her from the sight of Minmei and Kyle going into the same hotel, but Lisa is pretty much over it now.

“Welcome back to reality.”

They hold hands as they head back – very slowly – to work. This ship, it is sailing in the right direction! Ms9 is genuinely distressed, because she was hoping this was a platomance.

And speaking of Ms9, she has her own Robotech Rewatch report this week:

Ms9 Says: I think robotech is great but is a bit wobbly with Lisa, Rick, Kyle and Minmei. Sami is good at her job AND Lisas job but is a very good description of my little sister,(Ms5 ) in her free time.I am constantly shocked about how Roy had blood and shrapnor all down his back yet not evan survillians noticed,if they did, there super shy kids.I have also noticed that every time a(n important) person dies, theres always some food left.I’m not sure why all the Zentradi are all different if the only way of reproduction is cloning! Yet another way anime messed up.

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 20: Pieces of Athos

Another month gone! Is your year fleeing as fast as mine?

I’m gearing up for my Perth trip next week – I hope to see some of you at CrimeSceneWA! Very sad I won’t be getting to Conflux this year, as most of my friends will be there without me. My new Livia Day novel, Drowned Vanilla, will be out soon. I can almost smell the affogato!

I also have a new short story out this weekend, with the new Fablecroft anthology Phantazein launching at Conflux. My contribution, “The Love Letters of Swans,” is a story that takes the mythological romance of Paris and Helen and kicks it in the teeth. You’re welcome!

An exciting package also arrived on my doorstep last week, containing author copies of the anthology Clockwork Universe: Steampunk Vs Aliens from brand new publisher Zombies Need Brains. My story in this one is “Of War and Wings,” about the women who volunteer after Victorian London runs short of young men to fly their clockwork war apparatus during the alien invasion.

That’s my news, now back to our battered and flightworn pilots. It’s going to get worse before it gets better!

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 19.

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY IN MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana D’Artagnan is on a quest to take an urgent letter to the Duchess of Buckingham on the planet Valour, and request the return of a set of compromising diamond studs that could bring down their government. Separated from their fellow pilots and close friends Porthos and Aramis, it’s up to Athos and Dana now. And… it’s not going well.

NOW READ ON!

This chapter is dedicated to Laura Goodin, who appreciates the value of footwork.



20. Pieces of Athos

Dana checked her comm stud for the twentieth time. No one had made contact – not Aramis or Bazin or Porthos or Bonnie. At this stage, she would almost welcome a notification that she was about to be personally arrested by Cardinal Richelieu.

“Stop it,” Athos said in a low voice. “You’re driving yourself crazy. It won’t help.”

“Can I just -”

“No.” He had refused to let her make contact over the last few hours.

“But -”

“They know how to get in touch if they can. You filling their comms with anxious queries is not going to help anyone, and it will provide far too much information to anyone who might have them in custody.”

“You think they’re under arrest, then?”

“It’s a not unlikely scenario.”

“Aramis was wounded,” Dana moaned beneath her breath. “And Bonnie hadn’t even found Porthos…”

“I know, all right? Shut up about it.”

“Athos,” she said, knowing she was whining like a child but unable to stop herself.

“I can’t fly if I’m frantic,” he snapped at her. “So stop talking about them. Think of something calming.”

That was the most ridiculous thing Dana had ever heard. “Calming? Who can be calm at a time like this? How do you do it?”

“Fencing,” said Athos. “Fencing is calming. Do those footwork routines I showed you. In your head, if you please, I don’t want you prancing around the cockpit.”

“You want me to do footwork in my head?” Dana said incredulously. Then another thought occurred to her. “Hang on, is that what you’re doing when you get that pained expression on your face because we’ve been talking too much and you’re longing for us to leave you in peace?”

“You answered your own question there. If I say yes, will you stop talking?” He looked so tense, and his hands were shaking slightly on the controls.

Dana subsided, feeling guilty. He was right, he needed a calm frame of mind to pilot the ship. The least she could do was not sabotage him. “Footwork, got it,” she muttered.

She filled her mind with fencing exercises, her feet wriggling as she took herself through her paces. To her surprise, after doing it for a while, it actually did make her feel as if she could finally relax…

Dana blinked rapidly, looking around the small cockpit in alarm. “What was – hey, was I asleep? What the hell happened?”

The stars were different. She hadn’t just blinked or zoned out for a moment. She had been properly asleep. She could see the bright circle of Valour up ahead, and the blur of orbiting stations in orbit around her. They were a lot closer than they had been.

“That was some good calm right there,” drawled Athos. “It was so quiet, I might as well have been alone at the helm. You even gave Grimaud a run for her money, except for the snoring.”

Dana gave him a suspicious look. “Did you drug me because I was talking too much?”

“No, you genuinely fell asleep,” he assured her. “It was a beautiful thing. When I am old I will look back on that time with genuine fondness.”

She couldn’t believe it. Asleep. While they were on the run. It was almost embarrassing. “I don’t even have Grimaud’s excuse.”

“Could you check on her? I’m concerned she hasn’t come to yet.”

Dana nodded and let herself out of the seat. Grimaud still sat strapped against the far wall, her head drifting to one side and her eyes firmly closed. Dana ran through the usual response checks, everything short of putting a medipatch on her chest. “Her vitals are fine,” she reported finally. “She’s just – stunned.” It was rare for a dose from a pearl stunner to last more than an hour or so on a victim, but Grimaud had received a glaring blast from both Athos and Dana. They were lucky she hadn’t gone into coldshock.

“I hate stunners,” Athos growled.

“She wouldn’t have got a double dose if you’d trusted me to hit my marks,” Dana couldn’t help pointing out again. She was still annoyed by that. For all that her friends agreed this was her mission, they didn’t always treat her like an equal.

“I know,” he admitted, to Dana’s surprise. “Sorry. I don’t trust easily.”

“I’m shocked by that revelation,” she said lightly. She hadn’t expected him to actually apologise for it. “Shocked, I tell you.”

Athos’ hands might be busy at the helm, but he still took a moment to give her the finger.

Dana grinned.

Valour loomed larger and larger ahead of them, and still there were no messages from Porthos, Aramis or their engies.

Not even mental footwork calmed Dana down this time, as she checked and rechecked her comm. She found herself reaching out for Athos’ wrist, just to check if anything had come in on his comm without him noticing, and he pulled his arm away from her with a growl.

“They’re fine, D’Artagnan. They’ll get in touch when they can. And if not – if they can’t get to a communicator because they’ve been taken, we’ll just have to go collect them when we’re done with this mission of yours.”

This mission of yours. That stung harder than it should have done. Dana didn’t need reminding that she was the one who had brought them here.

Athos sighed impatiently. His eyes were still on the screens, his hands busy on the controls, but Dana knew that sigh. It was closely related to the ‘Porthos wants us to talk about our feelings’ huff from the other day.

“Do you really need me to tell you why they’re going to be all right?” he said finally.

“Yes,” said Dana, knowing that she sounded angry and that she was being ridiculous. She couldn’t help either of those things.

“Fine. Years ago, not long after the war when I still lived on Valour, I was – in a bad way. A drunk, for the most part, and don’t interrupt to tell me what a drunk I am now.”

“I didn’t say a word,” she murmured.

“Worse then, if you can imagine it. I travelled halfway around the damned planet until I was as far from home as I could possibly be, I bought a bar in the middle of nowhere on the side of a fucking mountain, and I climbed so far inside a bottle that I couldn’t even remember my name. Which was fine, because I’d left that behind with everything else.”

Athos was silent for a while, his fingers dancing across the dashboard as he made minute manual adjustments. He used his hands more than any other pilot Dana knew. Almost as if he didn’t trust his brain.

She thought for a moment he might have lost his place, but after a few minutes of concentration he returned to his story. “A woman walked into the bar, and I knew she was a spy. The war was over, but the Sun-kissed had still infiltrated most of the solar system with covert agents. I had – experience at recognising them. I was less than impressed with how the local militia handled that first instance, so after that I contacted the Fleet directly.”

“Treville?” Dana asked in a low voice.

Athos smiled briefly, and she saw the warmth in his eyes. “Treville. It’s amazing what information passes through a bar, especially one at the crossroads of several travel routes. I forwarded everything I learned directly on to her over the next couple of years. It was quite a game – I started drinking less and listening more. Then one day, a local criminal gang who had been profiting by kickbacks from the enemy figured out what I was doing.”

Dana winced.

Athos nodded. “Not good. I was abducted, and carted halfway up that damned mountain so they could decide whether they were going to ransom me or simply make me disappear. I convinced them that I was worthless.”

Dana gave him a dirty look. “Did you have a death wish?”

“Something like that. I certainly had no desire to reveal who I used to be. There was no one to miss me. The thought of disappearing so thoroughly was – something of a relief.”

He did not look at her, and she did not dare try to meet his eyes, and not only because they might end up crashing into an asteroid. Athos had never revealed so much of himself before, and she did not want it to stop. “What happened? Obviously you survived.”

“The Musketeers happened,” Athos said flatly. “Two darts arrived in the nick of time. My abductors were arrested, and taken to Paris Satellite for questioning. I wasn’t given a lot of choice in coming along. As for my rescuers, they patched me up, fed me, talked nonstop until I enlisted formally, and I haven’t got rid of them since.” He offered Dana a brief, biting grin. “It’s going to take more than a compromised solarcrawler and a handful of Sabres to get Porthos and Aramis off my back, believe me.”

Dana considered his story in silence. It was comforting to know how confident he felt in their friends and their ability to survive. But more than that – it meant something that he had been willing to share these pieces of his history in order to comfort her.

“Isn’t there a mountain in Valour called Athos?” she said finally, picking up on a detail of the story that he might not have wanted her to notice.

“It’s entirely possible,” he grunted.

“You named yourself after a mountain?” She turned to him, alight with curiosity. “What was your name before?”

But that was one question too many, and she saw his face close over. “Story time is over, D’Artagnan.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Life is unfair.”

She considered pouting, but that would just annoy both of them. “How long until we reach Valour?”

“We should be passing Meung Station in an hour or so. Entering Valour atmosphere shortly after that, if we make it in one piece.”

She looked at him in alarm. “Why wouldn’t we make it in one piece?”

“Largely because of the six pursuit ships that have been gaining on us for a while now. But we also have to consider the possibility that there might be more lying in wait for us, when we reach the planet.”

”Porthos and Aramis really aren’t the ones I should be worried about, are they?”

“Nope.”

Grimaud woke up when they were about twenty minutes out from Meung Station, and Athos slowed the ship down for planetary approach. She didn’t speak, but coughed and shifted uncomfortably in her harness.

“Stay where you are,” Athos barked at Dana, but she slipped her own harness and went to check on Grimaud, taking her a flask of water.

“How do you feel, engie?”

Grimaud swallowed down some water with shaky lips, her reflexes slower than usual. “Like someone shot me.”

“They’re vile, those Sabres!” Athos called from the front of the cockpit. “Can’t trust them an inch.”

Dana gave him a dirty look. “You’re not going to wriggle out of it that easily.”

“You don’t have to live with her!” he protested.

Dana continued to glare. It had no effect on Athos, as he was facing the other way, but he gave in anyway.

“Oh, fine. Grimaud, sweetness, you were caught in a friendly fire of pearl stunners. I will make it up to you, if we survive this. Speaking of which, D’Artagnan, get the fuck back in your harness before I flip you through the view screen. Things are about to get a lot less smooth around here.”

Dana had barely made it back to her seat before the Parry Riposte jolted violently, and Athos spun them off into a hard spin, then straightened them. “What is it?” she asked, fastening the last snaps of her harness.

“Those pursuit ships I mentioned some time ago ago? The ones that have been closing in over the last couple of hours but haven’t otherwise given us any trouble?”

Bright flashes of laser light exploded across the right side of the view screen, and the Parry Riposte shuddered around them.

“Never mind, I get it,” Dana said breathlessly. “Trouble.”

Three shots rang across the sky in quick succession; Athos managed to get the dart under two of them, but the third skimmed the hull with a vibration that made Dana’s teeth rattle.

Athos swore twice. “Damage?”

Dana thought at first that he was talking to her, but then Grimaud started rapping out specs from behind them and she realised that the engie had access to a diagnostics panel from the rear seat.

There was one here, as well, right by Dana’s hand. She called it up without asking permission. “There’s another three pursuit ships approaching from behind Meung Station.”

“Of course there are,” Athos bit out. He wiped something from the other side of his face and she saw a spatter of blood on his hand. Was that coming from his ear? “We know what they’re after. We’ve got to get you down to that planet.”

Another burst of light crossed Dana’s field of vision, but Athos slung the ship through a series of fast manoeuvres, avoiding the blast. “If we get close enough to the station, they’ll stop shooting,” he said. “There are three cathedrals on Meung, and twelve more across the other orbital stations and satellites.”

“We still have to lose them.”

“That I can do.”

Dana stared at the blood on his hand. “Athos… how deeply are you tapped into this ship?” It was different for different pilots and ship combinations. The better a pilot, the longer they had been flying the same ship, the more intimately woven their brain was into the controls. The more likely they were to take actual damage when their ship did.

“It’s just flashburn,” he said dismissively.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Grimaud cleared her throat, and said nothing, but the nothing she said was big enough to fill the cockpit.

Dana concentrated on the pursuit ships, the pattern they made across the diagnostics panel. Another wave of blasts came at them, from two different angles. Athos ducked and rolled the dart, but she shuddered under them with the force of another impact.

“The good news is they’re not actually trying to destroy us,” Athos said under his breath. His eyes were glassy with pain. “Probably have orders to take us alive, or we’d be in pieces already.”

“That’s not very comforting right now.”

“Hold on to something, both of you.” With that, the Parry Riposte took on a turn of speed that Dana didn’t know this generation of dart was capable of. They weaved around the pursuit ships and skimmed directly under Meung Station, then punched directly into Valour space, breaking through the atmosphere with a blinding flash of light.

“It rains a lot on Valour, I hear,” said Dana, using the diagnostics panel to search their region more widely.

“That’s what they say,” said Athos flatly, his hands and eyes busy on the controls.

“So,” she said, navigating a fast route and skimming the panel over to his central screen. “Cloud cover. Lots of it. Get there.”

He gave her a biting smile, and followed the route she had given.

“We’re draining the power spheres badly. Ten more minutes of this speed and we’re in real trouble,” Grimaud warned.

“I know,” Athos told her. “We’ve got other problems. D’Artagnan, ever flown doubles before?”

“Sure, once or twice in training,” Dana said without thinking. And then – “What?” He couldn’t be serious.

“I wouldn’t ask,” he said, and for the first time she realised that there was an uneven quality to his voice that had nothing to do with the vibrations of the damaged ship around them. “But there’s a good chance I’m going to lose consciousness in the next five minutes. Care to hop aboard?”

Doubling was a dangerous technique, only hauled out in training and dire emergencies. Having a second pilot keyed directly into the ship provided backup, yes, and in the best cases a merging of skills. But it meant merging thoughts, too, and it had never occurred to Dana in a million years that Athos of all people would be willing to open himself up like that.

Bloody hell. He had to be dying.

“Come on, D’Artagnan,” Athos roared, eyes fixed firmly ahead. “I can use Grimaud if I have to, but you’re the better pilot. Make a decision.”

“I will. Of course I will.” Dana glanced back, but Grimaud was already in motion, dragging a secondary helm and cables out of a panel in the side of the ship.

Dana had doubled with her mother, once or twice, before she was old enough to fly solo. It had been a strange, dissociative experience, to touch the mind and memories of a woman she thought she knew better than anyone. The first time did it, her mind was assaulted by the memories of Mama’s first battle. It had taken years before she could go near a spaceship helm without thinking of corpses floating in space.

This helm fitted snugly over her head, and the snap of the cables plugging into the base of her neck felt like home.

“Why is this affecting you so badly?” she asked Athos, because there was something about this that didn’t add up.

“Because he’s on nexus,” said Grimaud, leaning around Dana’s chest to make the last few connections.

Dana blinked. Nexus was one of the most powerful of the psychic drugs – it was used for gaming and other civilian cocktails most of the time because only a complete idiot would use it as a pilot drug. It was too bloody strong. “All the time?” she demanded. “Why?”

“Because I drink too much,” Athos muttered. “And there comes a time when all the Sobriety patches in the world don’t stop your hands trembling at the helm and harness.”

“Fuck,” Dana breathed. That meant he wasn’t just directly wired into the Parry Riposte, his mind was wrapped in and around herr. Every shot on target was hitting his system directly. She remembered the pain of the flashburn she had experienced during the Duel with Rosnay Cho. It had been nearly unbearable, and that didn’t even involve real ships.

“Hence the need for a co-pilot right now. Which, by the way, is one of the most humiliating requests I have ever had to make.” Athos wasn’t looking at her. His eyes and hands were all over the controls. Not a tremor in sight.

She wouldn’t have known he was in trouble until the last moment, not if he hadn’t confessed. Even with him bleeding from the ear. Dana was used to thinking of Athos as invulnerable.

“We don’t have to mention it again,” she said, shrugging her shoulders into the harness and making a mental check as the cables and connections stung her synapses. There she was, the Parry Riposte, ready and waiting for her. “Though I reserve the right to yell at you unreservedly once we’re on the ground. Ten minutes should do it. After that we’ll never mention it again. Grimaud, I hope there’s another ampoule left.”

“No,” Athos snapped. “You don’t need it.”

“We’ve never practiced this together, Athos, this isn’t fencing footwork,” Dana snarled back at him. “Do you really think we’re going to hold it together raw? I’d prefer a controlled dose of something milder like Flight but something tells me you don’t have it in stock.”

Grimaud hadn’t even hesitated. She already had the ampoule out, which she now placed on Dana’s tongue.

She hadn’t taken psychic drugs since that ridiculous time on Meung Station. What goes around comes around. For a moment, as the nexus swamped her tongue, Dana wondered if Rosnay Cho was captaining one of those bloody pursuit ships.

“Now,” she said quietly. “Let’s do this.”

Grimaud made the final connection, and the Parry Riposte reached out to Dana, pulling her roughly into the mind of the ship.

Thoughts and memories flooded her, a jumble of dream images and impulses. Dana clawed through it all, resisting the urge to stop and sift through what belonged to Athos and what was her own. She had a ship to save.

She was the ship, the ship was her. Dana’s mind reached out to her co-pilot, and she felt his thoughts brushing hesitantly against her.

The screens filled suddenly with a fierce, blinding purple light, and Dana felt her tenuous connection to the ship and Athos shatter into a million pieces.

You have been reading Musketeer Space, by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Tune in next week for another chapter! Please comment, share and link. Musketeer Space is free to read, but if you’d like to support the project for as little as $1 per month, please visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. Milestones already unlocked include the Musketeer Media Monday posts, the Robotech Rewatch posts, and a special Yuletide prequel story to be released in December. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock ART.

ROBOTECH REWATCH 18: Popaganda

Robotech will be rewatched after these messages.

It’s all hotting up this week – and we’re getting closer and closer to The Big Plot Twist. Meanwhile, Minmei finds new and interesting ways to present Stage Fright, the song with a thousand meanings.

Here are the full lyrics of Stage Fright, for those who have missed out on the poetry of the ultimate song of war, peace, the meaning of life, and humanity in general.

Stage lights flashing,

The feeling’s smashing.

My heart and soul belong to you.

And I’m here now, singing.

All bells are ringing.

My dream has finally come true.

Stage fright, go away,

This is my big day.

This is my time to be a star!

And the thrill that I feel

Is really unreal.

I can’t believe I’ve come this far!

This is my time to be a star!

I think there’s something in that for all of us.

20 – Paradise Lost

Things suck for the humans onboard the SDF1 – they’re being blamed for the destruction of a city and have lost their one chance at a refuge on Earth because the Canadians have “pulled back the welcome mat.”

You blow up ONE city…

The Zentraedi are so impressed by the terrible ruthlessness of the Micronians and their willingness to destroy whole cities for no apparent reason that they are bringing out the big guns. Dolza decides that it’s Azonia’s inexperience that’s the problem here and sends Breetai and Exedore back into the field.

I want to be mad about this on Azonia’s behalf, but I’m just so happy to see Breetai back. Team Breetai all the way!

Rick meanwhile is suffering guilt and hallucinations as he writes to Ben Dixon’s parents. Max cheers him up by chatting about his promotion and how he will inevitably soon be in Rick’s position of feeling responsible for dead people when he gets his own command, because of all that rocketing up the career ladder he’s been doing lately.

Oh, Max. You’re so pretty and unassuming, no one ever seems to notice you’re a bit of an arsehole.

Konda, Rico and Bron have set up a happy little campsite despite the fact that they are basically living in the walls. They’ve learned to cook beef stew and have nicked a hi-fi system from somewhere, so they can listen to Minmei. Already they’re starting to wonder whether they want to go back at all. But they don’t have a lot of choice in the matter – their time is up.

Gloval receives his orders to leave Earth with the refugees in a stony silence, as protest. Lisa commiserates with him afterwards, and they down shots. Gloval gives the bridge his orders from his ready room so he can smoke his pipe while doing it. Fair enough, really.

Massive numbers of enemy ships – nearly a million – come out of space fold, because Breetai is not fucking around this time. Gloval and Lisa restrain themselves from calling up the Earth government to do the ‘I told you so’ dance. It’s all pretty grim, and Gloval braces himself to explain to the ship’s populace that they are all expendable – their orders are to lure the Zentraedi away from the Earth by whatever means necessary.

Breetai calls up Azonia for some smack talk.

BREETAI: Hey baby look how many ships I have – ALL the ships.

AZONIA: That’s a lot of ships, dude – were you feeling inadequate?

BREETAI: I’d let you present your report but I’m too busy smirking at you. Maybe later.

AZONIA: H8 you so much right now.

The Zentraedi spies, back among their home fleet, present their report to Breetai. It takes HOURS because they are so enthusiastic. Breetai finally sends them away because they’ve given him a migraine, and Exedore doesn’t even wait for the meeting to be over before putting in his request to visit the Micronian holiday camp (because it sounds AWESOME).

Konda, Rico and Bron have held back several pockets full of shrunken artefacts, and quickly become the most popular boys on the ship by showing off their souvenirs. The singing Minmei doll is a big hit, and swiftly becomes the closest thing that the Zentraedi have to a meme.

Minmei opens for Captain Gloval who now gives a shipwide speech, telling the truth to the residents of Macross City – they have to leave the Earth again, possibly forever. He feels he has let them all down – and breaks down crying on camera.

Minmei is so sad for him that she gives him a cuddle (ON BEHALF OF US ALL) and gives a stirring speech of her own, proving what a propaganda gem she really is. Her love for and belief for Macross City shines out of her, and she convinces everyone that this isn’t such a bad deal – their home is the ship now and she loves them all like family.

Even Kyle manages not to be a dick about it for once, telling Gloval he knows he did his best.

Of course, Minmei then confuses us all by launching into a rendition of “Stage Fright,” as if it’s an entirely appropriate song for this moment, summing up the entire political situation. But we’ll give her this one. Girl did okay.

“I don’t understand anything about politics but I do know that the only way we will survive is to pull together.”

Minmei rocks it for Team SDF1.

As the SDF1 ascends into space again, fully stocked and ready for some alien action, it actually feels like a triumph rather than a failure. That’s the nicest note we’ve ended an episode on in some time!

This weekly rewatch of classic animated space opera Robotech is brought to you as bonus content for the Musketeer Space project. Thanks to everyone who has linked, commented, and especially to my paid patrons. You can support Musketeer Space at Patreon.

Friday Links is Still a Feminist in case you were wondering

So this has been the week of Emma Watson, who gave an impassioned speech at the UN (full transcript here) about the responsibility of men to support and promote gender equality. The #HeForShe campaign launched by Watson gained plenty of traction with many celebrity men making public statements about being feminist allies.

“When I was 8, I was confused about being called ‘bossy’ because I wanted to direct the plays that we would put on for our parents. But the boys were not. When at 14, I started to be sexualised by certain elements of the media, when at 15, my girlfriends started dropping out of their beloved sports teams, because they didn’t want to appear ‘muscle-y,’ when at 18, my male friends were unable to express their feelings, I decided that I was a feminist. And this seems uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word.”

But of course as with any public stance on feminism, there were the detractors and the attackers – that’s the depressing thing about the world we live in. Threats were made – though this later appeared to be a hoax, which makes it no less problematic – to expose nude pictures of Watson as had happened with Jennifer Lawrence and others in recent weeks.

Then there were the belittlers, like the Telegraph which mentioned Watson’s fashion success in the same headline as her feminist speech (AT THE UN) and put up an article with a photo of her in red carpet glamour rather than the business suit she wore for the event.

But Watson’s words are important, all the more because she is the glamorous “Harry Potter girl” and has a certain degree of media power which she is working to use for good. Her speech was listened to all around the world, making it clear that equality isn’t just an issue for women, it’s about making society better for everyone.

“I want men to take up this mantle so their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human, too and in doing so, be a more true and complete version of themselves.”

Elsewhere on the net this week –

Stephanie on No Award talks about Dementia Awareness Month, her father’s Alzeimers, and how important it is to talk about this stuff. Too often, the work of caring for family members is left silent and unacknowledged.

Neil Gaiman’s introduction to the new edition of Terry Pratchett’s non fiction writings, A Slip of the Keyboard, has been published in the Guardian and it’s magnificent – a rebuttal to Pratchett’s reputation as a jolly, magical and amusing person by celebrating his anger, and the power of rage to fuel a writing career as well as a life.

James Sutter on What Authors Owe Fans (or maybe George RR Martin IS your bitch…)

Kate Forsyth’s AMAZING fairy tale/historical epic novel Bitter Greens is finally being released in the US. I still believe that if it had been released internationally when it first came out, it would have scooped all the awards. Reeeeeead it.

Musketeer Space Part 19: How they Lost Porthos and Aramis

Musketeer Day! I’ve been home with a sick kid this week – which is to say, I have been furniture for a sick kid all week. Luckily I can type one-handed while cuddling a 5 year old. It’s a life skill I have to use surprisingly often.

I have my cushion back! 7 chapters between you and me. No idea how I managed it – oh yes that’s right, I’m completely obsessed with this story.

Don’t forget to check out this month’s Musketeer Media Monday post if you haven’t got to it already – Musketeers Crack Me Up in the Seventies (1973). Or just watch the movie, which is hilarious and wonderful.

Perth friends, readers, fans and people generally at a loose end on a Monday evening – I will be in your town (under the covert identity of crime writer Livia Day) in a couple of weeks for the CrimesceneWA convention – and the awesome Stefan is hosting a book event on the 13th October for the new Cafe La Femme novel, Drowned Vanilla. It features homemade icecream, film noir quotes, YouTube snogging and people being horribly drowned in lakes. I’m completely in love with this book (amazingly at this stage of the publishing process) and very excited that other people can read it soon. Squee! Please come along to the bookshop if you’re around and free because it’s going to be so much fun to meet & catch up with you all.

In the meantime, there’s a road trip to be getting on with. IN SPACE!

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 18.

Main Page & Table of Contents



PREVIOUSLY IN MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana D’Artagnan is on a mission to reclaim a coat with diamond studs from the Duchess of Buckingham, to save the Prince Regent’s marriage and possibly the solar system. Her friends, three Musketeer pilots, are along for the ride without asking any questions because they’re just that awesome.

NOW READ ON!

This chapter is dedicated to Patreon supporter Kirsty Presser, who has been reading my work since the distant days of the Invisible College. Thanks, Kirsty!

19: How they Lost Porthos and Aramis

Dana had thought that she had got to know her three Musketeers quite well over the last couple of months. But you don’t really know people until you are forced to spend several days in close confinement with them.

All of them were dressed as civilians. For Athos, this meant a flight suit and grey jacket that was otherwise identical to the bright blue one he usually wore as a Musketeer, though without actual fleur-de-lis symbols scrawled across it. Aramis joked that if you cut off Athos’ arm, you would find a white fleur-de-lis pattern running through his veins, so the grey was fooling no one. The jacket was a sensible choice at least in that it was long enough for him to carry his Pilot’s Slice without advertising that he was armed with a concealed blade.

Athos also had an ancient and battered dark grey hat, which he used mostly to pull down over his face and pretend to be sleeping, when he wanted no one to talk to him. This was most of the time.

Porthos wore a fiery red wig, blazing gold earrings, and silk pajamas in a swirling ocean pattern on the grounds that a touch of glam made her more comfortable – and as the only one of them who had left their ship back on Paris Satellite, she didn’t have to worry too much about being ready for action. Every six hours or so, to prove how bored she was, she would change her outfit and her wig.

Athos had threatened to set fire to her suitcase, the last time she did this.

Aramis wore a dark green flight suit, her only true concession to disguise being that her hair was gathered at the nape of her neck instead of the usual tight top knot. “I have to fly in a hurry, I’ll probably strangle myself,” she noted. “But at least it looks casual.”

The first day on the Calais solarcrawler consisted mostly of card games, nervous tension, and Aramis and Porthos telling loud, scandalous stories about each other’s sex life, which had the bonus effect of scaring away the travellers who had begun the trip on the other side of the aisle, in the carriage they shared. The Musketeers now had this carriage to themselves.

It allowed them to spread out more, so that Athos could sulk quietly on the far side of the solarcrawler from his more raucous friends – and, sometimes, Aramis could join him, reading poetry with her feet on the seat opposite and sighing loudly about the desertion of Tracy Dubois.

Dana devoted most of her spare time to stalking the Duchess of Buckingham by way of Planchet’s very convenient app. This had the bonus of making her annoyed at the dissolute lifestyle and irritating public habits of someone other than her three friends.

Still, by the second day, all four of them were just about ready to kill each other. They took turns sleeping in the bunks above the seats, never more than two at at time. They prowled the aisles of the other carriages in the guise of visiting the food printers, and they developed new and interesting ways of getting on each other’s nerves.

It was third shift of the second day, and the train lights were low. Dana slept for a few hours, to the soothing sound of Aramis and Porthos muttering at each other beneath her bunk. Athos, in the bunk on the far side of the carriage, had been lying still for a long time, but she was not sure if he was asleep either.

When Dana awoke, she heard a name, and then another, and frowned as it seemed that Aramis and Porthos were speaking in code.

“Londres,” said Aramis.

“Ngyeng,” said Porthos.

“Petronova.”

“Dee.”

Dana turned, irritated, to see Athos’ bright blue eyes shining at her from across the carriage. “They’re trying to work out which of them has shagged their way through more of Paris,” he said, and there was something about his disapproving tone of voice that broke Dana completely.

She laughed out loud, and Athos’ mouth twitched as if he wanted to laugh too. Just like that, their friends were less annoying again, which came as a relief.

“The peanut gallery can stay quiet, or we will entreat them to put their money where their mouths are,” Aramis said from below.

“Oh, I’m definitely not playing,” said Athos, rolling on to his back.

“You could bet on the outcome,” suggested Porthos, because gambling was always an option where she was concerned.

“Not doing that either,” Athos said firmly. “It’s going to be a tie.”

“Smartarse,” said Porthos. There was a long pause. “I think it actually is a tie. This is ridiculous. I know Aramis is more of a tart than I am.”

“At least my affairs are sequential rather than simultaneous,” Aramis said, sounding smug.

“Just be thankful you have divided Paris so neatly between you both,” Athos yawned. “Aramis takes the women, Porthos the men – no need to squabble about it.”

Dana arched an eyebrow at him, and asked the question she would normally not dare to speak aloud. “And what about Athos?”

He huffed quietly at the ceiling and said nothing.

“Ah,” said Aramis, as if she was discussing a great tragedy. “Athos fucks no one. It is a great source of frustration to us all.”

“Not true,” said Athos from his bunk, shifting again so that he had his back to Dana. “I hooked up with a Sabre three months ago. You got into a duel over my honour, which was mildly hilarious.”

“Oh yes,” Aramis said sourly. “How could I have forgotten?”

“The truth,” said Porthos in a mocking voice. “Is that Athos fucks no one who could ever make him happy.”

“Thank you!” said Athos, sounding approving. “Far more accurate.”

There was a long pause, and Dana wondered if he was asleep or only pretending so that the conversation would end.

“And Dana?” said Porthos cheekily, from below.

“Oh, me,” Dana said, glad at least for the low lights so she wouldn’t have to meet any of their eyes. “Paris is full of beautiful women and unattainable men. I’m sure I’ll catch up with you all eventually.”

Athos snorted. “If you could try not to attract a political conspiracy with every affair, it would be easier on my nerves.”

Dana grinned at the ceiling, thinking of the beautiful Conrad Su. “I’m not promising anything.”

A few hours later, Dana was awoken by a touch of Aramis’ cool hand on her cheek. “Time to start paying attention, baby doll,” the Musketeer whispered.

“How long?” asked Athos from the other bunk, rolling out and landing lightly on his feet as if he had not been sleeping at all, but waiting for exactly this summons.

Dana took a little longer, sighing before opening her eyes. “How long for what?”

“There are three points on the route where the Calais crosses Church Space,” said Aramis, helping Dana down from her own bunk. “If they’re going to jump us, it’s going to be in one of these windows of opportunity. The first one is due in about twenty minutes. But it’s a short run, they’d have to be sure of our arrest and have us packed away in under an hour. The second window is next shift and much longer. If they got the jump on us, we’d still be neutralised before getting too close to Valour, so that’s the one they’re most likely to take.”

“Unless they lose their nerve and strike early,” said Athos.

Dana felt disgruntled. They obviously all knew this but hadn’t mentioned it to her before now. This was supposed to be her mission! Then again, she should have researched the route – it had never occurred to her that she would need to check for pockets of Church Space. “Where’s Porthos?”

“Porthos is in the bar lounge, doing her bit to create a false sense of security in the red guards,” said Aramis, with a sly smile.

“Is that code for gaming and drinking?” asked Dana.

“I’m hoping for gaming and pretending to be much more drunk than she is,” said Athos. “But you can never be entirely sure, with Porthos.”

“Spaceship calling the sword silver!” Aramis coughed pointedly. “She’s not the only gambling drunk in this party.”

“I never said she was.” Athos replied.

Aramis spoke into her stud, connecting all three of them to Porthos. “Darling, you need to pull back. Dangerous territory ahead.”

Dana heard a buzz of conversation and static in her ear for a moment, then the clink of glasses. After a long pause, they heard Porthos speak in a low voice. “I may have miscalculated. I keep winning.”

Aramis frowned. “So lose some of it and get back here.”

“I’ve been trying,” Porthos insisted. “But I keep winning. They’re seriously pissed off, and if I leave the table now I think they’re going to kill me.”

“So you started gambling with red guards,” Athos said between gritted teeth as he joined the conversation. “And now you’ve given them an excuse to attack you.”

“I’ve bought drinks for the room but that’s only going to take us so far,” Porthos said warily. “They’re calling me back to the table, hang on.”

“Cheat to lose,” Aramis hissed. “I don’t like this.”

“Fuck that,” said Athos in a voice far more harsh than Dana was used to from him. “Leave the money and run. Pol, get the hell out of there. This smells like a trap.”

There was only silence from Porthos.

Aramis took her Pilot’s Slice from her bag and hung the baton from her belt, giving up on any pretence that she was a civilian now. She pulled an arc-ray Dana had never seen before from one of the deep pockets in her flight suit. “I’m going to get her.”

Dana took the opportunity to check on her own weapons – the Pilot’s Slice baton that Athos had given her, and the pearl stunner from Aramis.

Athos was already at the door of the carriage, but Aramis grabbed his collar and hauled him back. “No! I’m going to get her,” she insisted. “You and Dana make for the Parry Riposte in the hold. Porthos and I will make contact with the Morningstar and get out that way.”

“Aramis,” Athos said in a pained voice.

“Go,” she said, smacking him on the shoulder. “You have to get Dana to Valour.” She blew Dana a quick kiss and then threw herself through the rattling connecting door and was gone.

For a moment, Dana could not breathe. Then Athos moved, lifting himself up into the bunk he had most recently slept in. His fingers, and then the sharp edge of his Pilot’s Slice, worked quickly against the ventilation panel in the ceiling, which sprang open as if it was a trick he had prepared earlier.

“You’ve done this before,” Dana accused.

Athos gave her a swift, fierce grin. “Memorising the blueprints of public transport vehicles is never a waste of time. We chose this particular carriage for a reason.” With a fluidity which would only surprise those who had never fenced against him, he slid up and into the opening he had created, climbing into the narrow space beyond.

Dana did not hesitate to follow, pulling the ventilation panel closed behind them.

Their journey through the inner fittings of the Calais was long and tiring, though they covered a remarkably short distance for the effort it took. By the time they had made their way down into a service corridor, Dana was grimy and short of breath. Athos looked more cheerful than she had seen him in ages.

“Another short cut,” he revealed, hacking the electronic lock of a freight lift. “Act like you own the place.”

“Oh, pretending I own an entire solarcrawler won’t arouse suspicion at all,” Dana griped, but she restrained herself from saying more. What would she have done in this situation without her Musketeer friends and their experience to get her this far?

She had never felt so young in her life.

The freight lift took them down to the storage bay in the belly of the Calais, which was packed with crates and containers. Running alongside the enormous bay were the separate cells containing ships under transport to Valour. Each opened out into its own airlock, for ease of loading and unloading.

Dana’s stomach untwisted with relief as she saw the Parry Riposte, its fin tattoo covered in a pattern of geometric shapes instead of its usual display of sword hilts, vines and mountain range.

For the first time, Dana wondered about that mountain, and what it meant to her friend.

Athos hissed between his teeth, and Dana responded to his warning, stepping back to conceal herself behind a pile of bright orange storage tanks.

Dana did not have an arc-ray of her own, only the pearl stunner. When Athos slid his own hand out from under his grey jacket, she was mildly surprised to see that he was also armed only with a stunner.

How many? She mouthed to him.

He showed her four fingers.

Two each, then. Perfectly manageable. If she could manage to overcome the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears to aim, of course.

The comm silence from Porthos and Aramis was terrifying. She couldn’t think about that.

Athos counted to three silently by tapping his boot lightly against Dana’s own. Then he swung out on the far side of the tanks, and Dana moved the other way. She immediately saw two red guards standing sentry at the hatch of the Parry Riposte, which hung open. Two others, in Sabre flight suits, had hold of Grimaud’s arms and were marching her away from the ship.

Dana shot fast, first the one holding Grimaud’s right arm, and then the guard on the left of the hatch. Athos had taken out the guard on the right of the hatch already, but tried for a double shot on the guards holding Grimaud, which set up a fierce buzz of bright white stunner feedback.

They ran across to the ship, coming to a halt at Grimaud’s unconscious body.

“Is that why you’re not allowed a real gun?” Dana demanded.

“Results are what matter,” Athos growled, scooping up his engie and throwing her over his shoulder. “Let’s get on board.”

“You didn’t trust me to cover two of them,” Dana spat.

Athos gave her a weary look. “Don’t take it personally, D’Artagnan. I don’t trust anyone to do anything.”

But it wasn’t true, Dana thought sourly as they made for the hatch and closed it behind them. If Aramis and Porthos had been here, Athos would not have hesitated to assume they were each capable of stunning two guards.

The Parry Riposte had a standard internal layout for darts, with a secondary engie seat beside the pilot’s harness, and a couple of jumpseats at the back of the cockpit for passenger transport. Like Dana’s old Buttercup, there was a tiny cabin at the back with a bunk and other basic features.

Instead of putting the stunned Grimaud on the bunk, Athos strapped her into one of the jumpseats and then took his own place in the pilot’s position, arranging harness and helm with a deliberate precision that made it clear he had done this many times, without the assistance of an engie.

Dana would have offered to help, despite being pissed off at him, but he didn’t even pause as he snapped the cables into his own neck port, and clipped the straps of the harness firmly around him.

“Request emergency burst exit,” he ordered her, inserting another cable into his scalp as he secured the helm. “They won’t open the airlock for us otherwise.”

Dana took the seat beside him and leaned into the ship’s comm, glad she at least could have something practical to do. Something to take her mind off worrying about their friends, if only for a few seconds. She summoned up a casual drawl as she spoke. “Calais Control, this is civilian storage ship reference A309458, requesting clearance for emergency airlock release.”

“Reference 309458, this is an irregular request,” came the tinny voice from Calais Control. “Full passage will not be reimbursed.”

“Sorry, Calais Control, this is an emergency and we need to bug out earlier than expected. Terms and conditions understood.”

“Safety protocols enabled, airlock will release in three minutes.”

“Thank you, Calais Control.” Dana glanced over at Athos. “Three minutes.”

“A lot can happen in three minutes,” he said grimly, flicking between security screens. He rolled the ship forward a little, to put more distance between the crumpled red guards and themselves.

It was at the two and a half minute mark that reinforcements arrived, for the red guards. Half a dozen more Sabres ran into the storage bay, arc-rays at the ready.

Athos immediately fired up the main thrusters, sending a wave of heat back in the direction of the fallen and active guards.

“You’ll kill them,” Dana said in a low voice.

“Better them than us,” he said calmly. “Or did you forget that your mission is for the Crown?”

“Reference 309458, detecting life signs too close to your ship for standard safety parameters,” broke in Calais Control.

Dana reached for the comm, but Athos took over. “They’re nothing to do with us, Calais Control, but if we move fast, the rogue element won’t be coming into the airlock with us.”

“Understood, Reference 309458,” said Calais Control, and to Dana’s surprise the airlock seal slid open. Athos ran the ship forward just enough, and the seal closed behind them, to the dismay and fury of the Sabres and other red guards.

“Thought it was you, Athos,” added Calais Control in a far more casual voice. “Pol with you?”

“She’s still on board, Marc,” said Athos. “Keep an eye out for her? She was in trouble, last I heard.”

“Understood 309458, fly safe,” said the voice, back to its business-like and almost robotic formula. The final seal of the airlock gasped open, propelling the Parry Riposte out into cold space. They drifted for several hundred metres before the distance was safe enough for Athos to fire up the engine properly and draw the dart away from the Calais.

“Was that another one of Porthos’ convenient boyfriends driving the damn solarcrawler?” Dana said after a moment.

Athos shrugged. “I’m not even surprised when they turn up anymore.”

Dana concentrated on breathing for a few moments, trying to calm her thoughts down. They were clear, for now. She was on track for her mission. But it had been one hell of a cost.

Athos’ hand nudged against hers, and he pointed to one of several screens showing the spacescape outside the ship. Dana could see the long, sinuous shape of the Calais, running along the virtual rails that traced glowing, only-detectable-by-computer silver lines from Paris Satellite all the way to Valour and insured there was no deviation in the flight path.

There, attached to the side of the train like a leech on a miner’s leg, was the Morningstar. Like the Parry Riposte, Aramis’ dart was in disguise, with a generic pattern of suns and moons tattooed across its fin instead of the more devout imagery that Aramis preferred.

Athos activated his comm, pulling Dana into the same call. “Bonnie, Bazin, what’s happening?”

There was a pause, and then the anxious tones of Bazin the android filled the comms. “Captain-Lieutenant Aramis is aboard, but wounded. She is not currently conscious. Engineer Boniface has boarded the Calais to secure Captain-Lieutenant Porthos.”

Athos nodded grimly, as if this was about what he had expected. “Give Bonnie and Porthos as much time as you can, but if any Sabres or red guards approach the hatch, detach immediately and get Aramis to a hospice. Meung Station is the closest.”

“Yes, those instructions are compatible with my orders from Captain-Lieutenant Aramis,” Bazin said, as always providing evidence that robots were capable of sarcasm. “Godspeed, Captain-Lieutenant Athos.”

“Godspeed, Bazin,” said Athos, and closed the comm.

Dana’s hands were shaking. She had no idea what to do with any of this. “Aramis and Porthos.”

“They’ll be fine,” Athos said in a clipped voice. “Worry about us. We’re the ones with the precious cargo, remember? They’re out of it now.” He glanced at the screens. “We can outstrip the Calais and make it to Valour in the next eight hours at maximum thrust. Nine or ten hours if I take the route to avoid crossing pockets of Church Space. But if they send pursuit ships after us, there’s nothing to do but run.”

“Not if,” Dana said in a small voice. “When.”

Athos nodded, hands steady on the controls. He always looked more at peace in helm and harness of his dart than at any other time. “Not if,” he agreed. “When.”

You have been reading Musketeer Space, by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Tune in next week for another chapter! Please comment, share and link. Musketeer Space is free to read, but if you’d like to support the project for as little as $1 per month, please visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. Milestones already unlocked include the Musketeer Media Monday posts, the Robotech Rewatch posts, and a special Yuletide prequel story to be released in December. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock ART.

ROBOTECH REWATCH 17: Don’t Make Dinner Plans II Revenge of the Steak

Robotech will be rewatched after these messages.

More death and food in this one.

19. Bursting Point

We haven’t forgotten the vital plot thread about how the SDF1 has been ordered into space along with its tantalising city full of peoplebait, to lure the Zentraedi away from the Earth.

Captain Gloval takes passive aggressiveness to the ultimate extreme, flying the SDF1 in a low crawl over cities and other populated areas. As the authorities protest his actions, he declares over an open channel that he will continue to keep intimidating them all with his massive Robotech ship until the Earth government lets him deport all his civilian passengers.

Oh, and he pretends that the low flying is due to a ‘fault’ in the ship which is endangering the residents of Macross City. Another reason to let them off already. Gloval is basically awesome, and he is too old for this shit.

Claudia and Lisa are pleased when the captain confides in them that he is doing all this deliberately, especially the declarations on open channels, on the off chance that someone in a position of power will do SOMETHING about this appalling situation. He’s not holding out much hope, but it’s all they’ve got right now.

Claudia is acting as sunny and Completely Fine despite her recent loss, and Lisa is worried about her. When they get off bridge duty, Lisa hesitates to approach her wistful, mourning friend at the cafe, and is conveniently distracted by the sight of an equally wistful, mourning Rick. Lisa decides to talk to Rick instead. Mostly they talk about ship defences – there’s a new defensive shield to replace the pinpoint barrier. This makes two conversations they’ve had without wanting to kill each other! I’m so proud of them both.

Rick confirms to Lisa (who asks the question Very Casually) that Minmei is his girlfriend, though really I’m not sure what his relationship criteria are since they’ve only seen each other twice in the last year. Minmei pretty much treats him as This Bloke I Used To Hang Out With. But the fact that Lisa asks at all is… interesting. What’s your agenda here, Lisa?

Captain Gloval’s strategic passive aggressiveness finally pays off when Ontario, Canada offers to take the civilians. It’s a win, and feels like something is finally going right. In the world of Robotech this is never a good sign.

Azonia squabbles with Khyron over his issues with authority, and his constant resentment at being told not to shoot people. Shock! I’m sure he’s not going to do anything silly like attack the Micronians against direct orders. Like all those other times.

Miriya, shocks Azonia when she requests a reassignment as a Micronican spy. Miriya is deeply rattled after her dogfight with Max and the horrible discovery that he might be a better pilot than her. Azonia feels it’s a waste of Miriya’s talents as a pilot, but does not refuse her.

Rick has inherited Roy’s old Skull One fighter and the position of Skull Leader. He acknowledges the irony of the situation – Roy was so proud he had never been shot down, and now he has died in combat and his ship has passed on to the pilot who is ALWAYS being shot down.

I kind of love how self aware Rick is about his terrible flight record. Though it is kind of interesting how shiny and well maintained Skull One is considering that it was so badly dinged up in the previous episode. Obviously the SDF1 mechanics are magic. The unsung heroes of this show.

Ben and Max take Rick out to dinner to celebrate his promotion, which feels a bit inappropriately cheery under the circumstances but I guess they have to get their chuckles where they can. Ben basically orders half a cow. Just as he is about to dig in with knife and fork, the red alert goes out and all pilots have to move out.

“Don’t move, I’ll be back real soon.”

Ben’s farewell to his beef. Theirs is a doomed love.

Ben/Beef. Rick ships it.

As the new Skull leader, Rick takes his men into combat. Amazingly, Khyron is attacking the Micronians without first being directly forbidden to do so by his leader. I’m a bit chuffed about this sign of personal growth.

The SDF1 stands by to engage their shiny new barrier system, even though Claudia has pointed out that this will render the ship’s weapons useless. It’s also going to suck a whole lot of power. But is bound to be more effective than that whole ping-pong based pinpoint barrier system and the poor operator who suffered whiplash and possible RSI for the rapid movement required to operate it. The energy barrier goes up shortly after Miriya has been inserted on to the ship – and Khyron is surprised when the barrier holds up against his attack.

The Zentraedi are all very impressed as they’ve never seen an energy barrier like this before. Nevertheless they keep pounding on it. Eventually, it overloads, causing a chain reaction and a horrific explosion that destroys a city below the SDF1. Ben Dixon is killed in the blast, with a horrific scream.

His steak will mourn him, so much. They could have had something beautiful together.

Ontario decide on balance that they have changed their mind about taking on the Macross civilians. What with the burning city and all.

While all this is going on, Minmei faints from overwork and is taken to hospital.

In the wake of the SDF1 disaster, Lynn Kyle is interviewed in a press conference about the state of Minmei’s health, making an odd but deliberate juxtaposition between this event and the more dramatic events happening outside the ship. Kyle tears into the reporters for caring about something so shallow as a beloved celebrity’s health when they are in the middle of a destructive space war, and people are dying.

He has a point, but rapidly loses ‘don’t be a dick’ points by taking the opportunity to slam the military for their participation in the war. Various servicemen and women watch his press conference in bewilderment, with the bridge crew noting that Kyle seems to be advocating a complete surrender to the attacking aliens.

Ah, Kyle. Committed to pacifism except when he gets a chance to show off his fighting feet, but not great at grasping complex political situations like ‘we’ve been running away from the aliens for two years and they keep attacking us.’

Poor old Minmei, who has not been keeping up with current events, calls Rick to assure him that she’s fine after her fainting spell. It’s an unfortunate case of bad timing, as he is in shock after the battle and losing his second friend in as many episodes, not to mention that with the death of Ben Dixon this is the first time he has lost someone under his own command.

More clearly than anything else, this scene – in which he drops the phone and walks away, unable to articulate to Minmei how much he doesn’t want to hear about her hard work on the film set – illustrates that they belong to different worlds now, with very different priorities.

#FirstMinmeiProblems

This weekly rewatch of classic animated space opera Robotech is brought to you as bonus content for the Musketeer Space project. Thanks to everyone who has linked, commented, and especially to my paid patrons. You can support Musketeer Space at Patreon.

Friday Links is Blue and Gold

The news of the week as far as I’m concerned is the return of Ted Kord as Blue Beetle, my all-time favourite male superhero, to DC Comics. And yeah, Booster’s coming too. I am officially going to start reading Justice League 3000 now, because REASONS. Much love to Tara O’Shea, who let me know about this exciting development on Twitter, because I was one of only 2 people she knew who would care. YES I CARE.

And for those of you who share Friday Night is Arrow Night with me in real life, no I’m not gonna stop squealing with anticipation every time someone walks past a box labelled Kord Industries.

In other news, NY Mag put up a piece recently on the Most Feminist Moments in Sci Fi History. It’s a good list.

Bitch Magazine calls out the portrayal of Hollywood’s “strong female characters” as humourless. I think they might have a point about one particular type of geek-approved tough lady character, but the comments quite rightly point out the many exceptions. In particular, that they discuss all the main female characters in this year’s Marvel movies EXCEPT Black Widow, who combines stoic competence and toughness with wisecracking. (I’d also add Starbuck as a recent iconic ‘tough’ female action hero who was also pretty damn funny at times)

Having said that, if their point is that we need more female protagonists like Buffy and Xena, who get all the best jokes in their own show, I’m not going to argue.

Speaking of strong, awesome, funny women, Locus recently interviewed the amazing Nicola Griffith – here are some excerpts from her interview, talking about (among other things) women as characters, writing sex, violence and religion, the future volumes of Hild, and why science fiction isn’t a clubhouse full of just white guys any more.

At i09, the greatest black women in superhero comics (who aren’t Storm).

The Mary Sue looks at the interesting range of female protagonists you can find in Seinen manga and anime – where the target demographic is adult men. You mean male readers can enjoy good stories about women? GET OUT.

And at Boing Boing, What’s Right With Hermione – the continuing importance of a fictional character role model for smart, hard-working young women.

EDIT: How could I forget to mention that Alison Bechdel won a freaking MacArthur Grant? Because she is in fact a genius, but how brilliant is it that she is recognised as such?

The following video has nothing to do with anything in these links, but its existence makes me stupidly happy. Think of it as a slightly late throwback Thursday.

Musketeer Space Part 18 – Kissing at Airlocks

Musketeer Day again! They come around quick, don’t they?

I’m still recovering from the joyous swordfest that was The Three Musketeers (1973) or as I prefer to call it, Musketeers Crack Me Up Seventies-Style.

Meanwhile, I’ve been writing the Christmas Joyeux story which will be published on the blog at Christmas, thanks to the financial supporters of the Musketeer Space project via Patreon. It may have turned into a novella. I regret nothing.

There are a bunch of rewards and milestones still up for grabs on my Patreon page, including 3 more opportunities to name a Musketeer Space spaceship. Check it out today!

Now on to space hijinks.

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 17.

Main Page & Table of Contents

PREVIOUSLY IN MUSKETEER SPACE: Prince Alek of Auster shouldn’t have met secretly with the Duchess of Buckingham, and he definitely shouldn’t have given her that peacock jacket with the diamond studs. As the Regent’s husband, the stability of the government of the entire Solar System rests on his marriage contract, and Alek’s blown it in a big way.

Would-be Musketeer pilot Dana D’Artagnan has volunteered to get the diamonds back in time to save the day… for the sake of the Crown, honestly, and not just because the Prince’s tailor Conrad is really cute. Though let’s not kid ourselves here, he’s extremely cute.

NOW READ ON!

This chapter of Musketeer Space is dedicated to Miriam Mulcahy.

Thanks so much for your support!

18. Kissing at Airlocks

There was a difference, it seemed, between arriving to see Amiral Treville without an appointment when you were fresh off the venturer, and as a known quantity. Dana only had to wait an hour and a half before she was waved in through the plexi-glass doors to Treville’s office.

Treville dropped into the seat on one side of her sitting desk and waited for Dana to join her. “Timing is everything, kid. I just got off the subspace with Alix.”

“Mama?” said Dana in surprise. She had barely heard her mother’s voice in months. Subspace communications were an extravagance she could not afford. “Is everything all right back on Gascon Station?”

Treville shrugged one of her large, muscular shoulders. “It’s classified, of course. But you’re family, so you might as well know. Your mother’s security team uncovered three Sun-kissed agents on Gascon, disguised as tourists. We believe there are more, among the miners down on Freedom.”

Dana shivered. “The Sun-kissed didn’t bother with Freedom or Gascon Station last time around.”

“And yet,” said Treville evenly. “So you catch me on the cliff edge of a crisis, young D’Artagnan. The old enemy are moving against us and they haven’t got any worse at hiding in plain sight. Thank God and All for the vigilance shown by your mother and the bloody Gascons. But what’s your news?”

Dana hesitated for only a moment, then straightened her back and met Treville’s gaze. If she didn’t have confidence in herself now, how could she expect anyone else to believe in her? Even Conrad needed some persuasion, she thought sourly to herself. “I need you to authorise a mission to Valour.”

Treville’s face did not move. “Last I noticed, chicken, you weren’t working for me. Remember Commandant Essart? Appallingly chipper old duck, but good at her job.”

“This isn’t a Mecha Squad matter,” said Dana desperately. “It should have gone to a Musketeer, I know that. But – chance brought me into the path of a secret, and now I’m in the confidence of the Prince’s friend, and they’ve said they will entrust me with a letter…”

“Hey,” said Treville, reaching out a surprisingly soft hand to grip Dana’s shoulder. “Breathe.”

Dana felt like a child. She had meant to be so cool about this. But she took the Amiral’s advice, sucking in a slow, deep breath and letting it out again.

“So,” said Treville, a moment later. “This is about the Prince Consort?”

“It’s a matter of great political and personal sensitivity to his Highness,” Dana said in a small voice. “He needs someone to take a letter secretly to Valour, and collect an item for him before the ball. They know I’m talking to you – I can tell you what the letter will contain.”

“No,” Treville said sharply. She stood up, pacing back and forth. “Keep your damned secret, D’Artagnan. If the Prince needs this, that’s good enough for me. You’ll need backup, though.”

Dana nodded slowly. “And passage on the Calais, I thought?”

Treville looked amused. “You’re not negotiating for your own dart?”

Dana’s face felt hot. “I wouldn’t presume!”

Treville picked up a clamshell and tossed it from hand to hand before tapping notes into it. “I’ll need to arrange leave for you with Commandant Essart, and move the schedule around to release some Musketeers to accompany you. What do our three inseparables think about all this?”

Dana felt a stab of guilt. “They don’t know about it yet – about the mission, anyway. I came to you first. They know a little of the rest.”

“They’d be ideal choices for backup,” said Treville. You know, I think Porthos has been a bit off colour lately. Perhaps she needs some dirtside air to pick her up a bit. Aramis is well overdue for some personal leave, though I’m not going to admit that I’ve heard enough gossip around the traps to know she’s eating her heart out over some woman or other. And I’m sure Athos has picked up at least one duel-related injury this week.” Her mouth twitched, and she tapped a few more commands into her clamshell. “They could all do with a holiday.”

Dana couldn’t hide her surprise. She had expected to have to fight Treville on this, pulling out of all the stops to convince her that this mission was necessary. It was an odd feeling, to be taken at her word. “You’re putting a great deal of faith in me,” she said finally.

“Yes, I am,” said Treville in a firm growl of a voice. She looked Dana up and down. “I like your initiative, D’Artagnan. Athos speaks well of you, and a week doesn’t go by without one of my gals bending my ear, hinting that you’re worthy of service to this fleet of ours.”

Dana hadn’t known her friends were doing that. Part of her wanted the floor to open up and swallow her from embarrassment. But she wanted to grin stupidly, too. They believed in her.

“More to the point,” said Treville calmly. “I like that you came to me first with this. You’re not so swept up in the romance of being a Musketeer that you dodge proper procedure, like some people I might mention. And…” She looked uncomfortable now. “What I’m going to say to you right now will not go out of this room. I don’t like what’s happening right now, on Luna Palais. I don’t like that her Eminence the Cardinal takes every damned chance she can to fuel the distrust that’s growing between the Regent and her husband. It’s a nasty business, and it undermines the stability we were promised with their alliance. If the Prince Consort needs a mission taken care of with discretion, I’m going to give him my best people. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Dana, allowing the stupid grin to take over her face.

“So get the hell out of here, and take that letter where it needs to go. I’ll handle the rest.”

Stunned, Dana left the office, knowing that next time the others raised a glass in honour of their precious Amiral Treville, she would be shouting along with them.

Dana went to Aramis’ place first. She had not seen her in a few days. Unusually, the android Bazin let her in immediately without first quizzing her on her recent religious observances, or even whether she had wiped her feet.

“Captain-Lieutenant Aramis will now get dressed, if her friend is here,” he said with an unhappy trill, his metallic head tilting slightly to one side.

Aramis lay on her couch with a large volume of theological poetry balanced on her stomach, and a towel over her eyes. Her hair, usually bound up in a tight topknot for duty, fell in a dark wave over the arm of the couch. “Bazin, shut up and make me coffee.”

“Captain-Lieutenant Aramis did not attend church this morning,” Bazin said in his usual monotone, with a hiss against his words that made a bemused Dana think he was perhaps trying to whisper.

As Bazin slid away to make coffee for them on the other side of the room, where the food printer was sandwiched between two bookcases, Dana sat on the edge of the couch near her friend. She reached out gently and took the towel off her face. “Are you drunk?”

“Heartbroken,” sighed Aramis. She did look miserable, and her eyes were red and sore. “Also, slightly overdosed on poetry.”

Dana eyed the large book skeptically. “Does it help?”

“Not today.” Aramis sat up and leaned her forehead against Dana’s shoulder – not so much a hug as a droop. “Why do I always feel so bad when they return to their real partners? I know I was only borrowing her, but it still hurts.”

Dana had fairly limited experience with sleeping with men or women who were contracted elsewhere – and she refused to connect Aramis’ current misery to the flirtation she had going with Conrad Su. Instead, she patted Aramis’ back and gave her a proper hug, glad all over again that her crush on the other woman had disappeared into platonic friendship very early on.

Friendship was better. It had the potential to last longer, especially where Aramis was concerned.

“What you need is a mission to take your mind off it,” Dana said, trying to sound cheerful and encouraging.

“Captain-Lieutenant Aramis has received notification of two weeks personal leave beginning today!” announced Bazin from the food printer. “It will allow her the time she needs to contemplate the many ways in which she can nourish her soul.”

Aramis came alert at the news, pushing Dana out of her arms. “Leave? Why am I on leave? Has someone been telling Treville about my love life?” She swayed for a moment. “Ugh. Too much poetry. Take it away before it poisons me.”

Dana hastily levered the enormous book off Aramis’ lap and dropped it on the floor, then pushed it under the couch with her foot. Hopefully that would be far enough away. “I requested the leave for you. But we have to go to Athos’ place right now. If you’re up for an adventure.”

The old spark lit Aramis up, if only briefly. “Oh, an adventure. Why didn’t you say so?”

Grimaud answered Athos’ door, her headphones securely fastened beneath her star scarf. She gave Dana an extremely sarcastic look, and said nothing as Dana and Aramis trooped in, carrying the coffee cups they had brought with them at Bazin’s plaintive insistence.

Athos stood at his kitchen bar, with a clamshell sprawled open before him. “Funny thing,” he said. “According to Treville, I have been given two weeks leave for my health. Do either of you know something I don’t, or does she finally agree that I need to devote myself to full time drinking?”

Dana bit her lip. “Actually, the leave means that Treville wants you – all of you – to follow me.”

Athos looked even more sarcastic than Grimaud. It was something about his eyebrows. They were at least twice as world-weary as the rest of him, and that was saying something. “To take the waters at Truth? A holiday spa on one of the Daughters of Peace, perhaps? D’Artagnan, I didn’t know you cared so much about my health.”

“Valour,” said Dana, and watched his face close over. There was something about that particular planet, she knew, that disturbed Athos greatly. It couldn’t be helped. She needed him for this. She needed all of them.

Porthos burst into the apartment, not bothering to hide the fact that the entry code to the door had not even slowed her down. “Leave!” she exclaimed. “Since when do we get personal leave without asking for it? Is Treville cracking up at last? I knew she was on edge, but this is ridiculous. Is someone trying to get us out of the way, do you think?” She gave Aramis a very pointed look. “Someone hasn’t been getting political, have they?”

“I don’t know why you look at me,” said Aramis, tossing her hair. “I haven’t seduced anyone political for months. Besides, I’m nursing a broken heart.”

“Oh, right,” Porthos scoffed. Then, very slowly, she turned to Dana, who lifted her own chin and tried not to look guilty. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“It’s a secret mission for the Crown,” said Dana. Honestly, it didn’t get any easier each time she tried to explain.

“And does this have anything to do with -”

Athos raised a hand, and the other two went very still, watching him. “Treville thinks we should follow you, D’Artagnan?”

“You’re the reason she trusts me,” Dana said, feeling defensive. “All three of you. She refused to even ask for the details once I told her it was a royal secret…”

“So we won’t ask questions either,” Athos said steadily. “This is your mission. Tell us what we need to know.”

Dana felt a warmth spreading from her stomach. It was a good thing, to be trusted. “I will receive a letter shortly,” she said. “To be delivered to an old acquaintance of yours in Valour.”

Athos flinched at that, but it was Aramis who said, “Buck?” in a low voice.

Dana nodded. “She received a token from the Prince Consort which he needs back here, urgently. Before the anniversary ball.”

“That’s a tight time limit,” said Porthos.

“We can do it faster in the darts,” said Athos. “But too showy. They’d make us in an instant.”

“And I don’t have a dart,” Dana noted.

Athos shrugged, as if that was a minor detail. “You could ride with one of us.”

“He’s right, though,” said Aramis. “The three of us setting off in our darts is too obvious. I presume we’ll be followed?”

“Her Eminence won’t want me to get to Valour,” Dana admitted.

All three of them nodded, as if this was what they had expected.

“Special Agent Cho will have her eye on you now,” Porthos added.

“I thought the Calais,” said Dana.

Athos winced. “I don’t like the idea of us trapped on that damned solarcrawler. Too many ways to get boxed in.”

“We could take a getaway ship as freight,” Porthos said thoughtfully. “Or one of us could follow the Calais, ready to patch in if we have to.”

Dana had a thought. “Do you know how to use a sight-shield, to conceal or change your ship’s tattoo?”

All three of them blinked at her.

“Where did you learn a trick like that?” Aramis said finally.

“Your girlfriend,” Dana admitted. “Um. Your most recent girlfriend.”

Aramis’ eyes narrowed, and she hooked one arm around Dana’s neck. “Is it time for you and I to have a chat about information best shared sooner rather than later, baby doll?”

“The time for that is definitely later,” said Dana. “Much later. The Calais leaves in two hours. We already have our tickets booked.”

The Calais solar crawler was perhaps the slowest way to get from Paris Satellite to the planet Valour, but it had the benefit of being too damned big and too damned populated for anyone to hijack.

It looked like an articulated earthworm made out of steel armour and plexi-glass, and ran a steady, reliable transport service between Paris and Dover Satellite, the largest orbital city of Valour.

Three days there, 24 hours to find the Duchess of Buckingham and reclaim the diamond studs, and three days back. Grimaud was parked in freight guarding Athos’ disguised Parry Riposte, and Bazin and Bonnie were both crewing Aramis’ disguised Morningstar, which would discreetly follow the solarcrawler and allow them to scan for any other ships which might likewise following them. Porthos’ Hoyden remained on station, to make it less obvious that the three Musketeers known as the ‘inseparables’ had bugged out at the same time. Planchet had also reluctantly agreed to stay out of this particular adventure, on the grounds that she was still technically employed by Madame Su, and someone had to conceal the fact that Dana had gone anywhere.

She had, however, loaned her clamshell to Dana, fitted out with an app that assimilated all network, broadcast and social media references to the Duchess of Buckingham, which would hopefully help her locate and communicate with Buck as efficiently as possible.

It was a good plan.

But Dana, standing on the crowded platform near the airlock, was missing one vital element. She still had not received the letter from the Prince Consort, and they were running out of time.

Athos and Aramis were already on the solarcrawler, staking out the four-person carriage that Dana had booked for them. Porthos was at the other end of the platform, making a very public farewell to one of her boyfriends. This worked as a perfectly reasonable ‘we are ordinary people not on a secret mission’ cover, as it turned out that the departures platform was a place where a lot of people chose to kiss other people.

Dana stood there, surrounded by travellers and their friends and families, and a whole lot of kissing. Her thoughts were frantically full of Rosnay Cho, who must surely be sent after them soon if she hadn’t already. Dana jumped every time she spotted a colour which seemed deeply inappropriate for a flight suit. The Cardinal would certainly send her special agent after them, if she had any idea that this mission was taking place.

Of course the Cardinal had to know about the mission. The Cardinal, Dana was only just starting to learn, knew bloody everything.

A hand caught at hers, dragging her back off the platform. Dana resisted only for a moment when she saw a spiky lock of blue hair sticking out from beneath a black cap like the ones that the Ravens wore. “I like your disguise,” she said breathlessly.

“I worked on it specially,” said Conrad Su, with mischief alight in his eyes. Before Dana could ask a question or even mention the letter, he tugged her towards him, and she practically fell upon his mouth.

It was a good kiss, a more thorough and exploring snog than they had exchanged before, and Dana would have been lost in it entirely if not for the sting of a stud burrowing into the lining of her cheek. “Romantic,” she said dryly as their mouths parted.

“It’s what all the cool kids are doing,” he said, with a vague gesture at the many kissing couples and families around them. The crowd had thinned somewhat now, as they were only a few minutes from final lockdown. Only the hardcore kissers and huggers remained on the platform now.

“I have to go,” said Dana.

“Obviously,” Conrad said, ducking his head slightly as he smiled at her. He almost looked shy for a brief moment. Just another reason to find him ridiculously attractive. “Good luck,” he offered.

Dana was feeling confident again. “Kiss me again before I go,” she said impatiently.

This time, when their mouths came together, there was no exchange of information studs. Just tongue.

By the time Dana found the carriage where Aramis and Athos had begun the first card game of many, the Calais was already detaching from the air lock.

“Here’s to a boring and uneventful journey,” said Athos, not looking up as Dana slid into the seat next to him. Porthos joined them a few minutes later, sitting beside Aramis and opposite Dana. “Three obvious intelligence agents in the cheap seats,” she said. “A couple more I’m not sure of in first class. More red guards than I’ve seen on the Calais before – but most of them are doing security checks for the Sun-kissed.”

“That’s a good cover,” said Athos, dealing the cards. “Though increased security is to be expected after the Regent’s speech. Blood scans?”

“Psych scans too.”

He nodded. “D’Artagnan, if they ask you, go for the blood scan. You don’t want to give anyone an excuse to look inside your head.”

“Got it,” said Dana. She wormed the stud that Conrad had given her out of her cheek with her tongue. It was a high grade platinum, very fancy, and would look out of place in the line along her wrist. This is where having hair longer than a centimetre would be useful. She hesitated for a moment.

“Ankle,” said Athos without looking at her. “Stings like a son of a bitch, but it’s amazing how often an interrogator forgets to check inside your boots.”

“That’s true, actually,” said Porthos as Dana slipped her fingers inside the soft leather of her boots, and pushed the stud into the flesh just above the bone of her ankle. “I used to keep an arc-ray down there until that time I accidentally burned two of my toes.”

“To Valour, then,” Dana said breathlessly. She didn’t have to words to say how grateful she was that her friends were willing to come with her on this, without even knowing the details of the mission.

She was grateful to them, full stop.

“To Valour,” Athos echoed, in a far less enthusiastic tone.

Aramis nudged him with her knee. “Cheer up. Dana’s the only one who has to make it in one piece to the actual planet. Chances are, the three of us be collateral damage along the way, and she’ll have to leave us floating dead in the freezing wastes of space.”

“Promises, promises,” replied Athos.

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 COVER ART.

Musketeers Crack Me Up Seventies Style (1973)

It’s Musketeer Media Monday! Today I’m reviewing The Three Musketeers (1973) which many hold up as the ultimate adaptation of the novel. It’s hard to argue with that. Let’s buckle some swash!

This film, directed by Richard Lester and scripted by George McDonald Fraser, is a surprisingly close interpretation of the original novel’s narrative. I’d watched it before and liked it a lot, but this time around (with my engagement with the text just a BIT more intensive) I was surprised at what a fantastic job they did.

The Three Musketeers (1973) features very old school interpretations of the characters, plenty of direct quotes from the book itself, and a deep dedication to awesome sword fighting as well as background historical detail. Great costumes, great sets, great action, sharp dialogue, and random hawking and hunting scenes. All good stuff. The story is split over two movies, The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), with this first film covering the Matter of the Queen’s Diamonds. I really should have looked at this one at the beginning of the Musketeer Media Monday project, as there are many creative decisions of the later adaptations (particularly Musketeers in an Exciting Adventure With Airships (2011) but it could be argued for Musketeers Are All For Love (1993) and Looks Good In Leather (2014) as well) which are obviously alluding to, inspired by or working against this particular film.

The main innovation of The Three Musketeers (1973) is that it’s a comedy. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone – after all, the novel itself is very, very funny. But I was still a bit shocked at how completely hilarious the film version was. I was in stitches most of the time I was watching – and apart from a few wince-inducing moments, I was mostly laughing WITH the movie rather than at it.

I’ve tried to explain the brilliance of this film to people in real life and they tend to look at me dubiously. Yes, okay, slapstick + sword fighting sounds a bit terrible, and once you add the sexy/clumsy shenanigans of Racquel Welch’s Constance, it does sound like the worst kind of 70’s bedroom farce.

Let’s get one thing straight though – I am a person who generally loathes physical comedy. I can appreciate it grudgingly when it’s done well, but when the humour hinges on the physical rather than dialogue and character, I get the urge to poke my eyes out with a spoon. The comedy in The Three Musketeers (1973), however, is choreographed wonderfully. In particular, many of the set piece sword fights combine great fighting skills with a layer of clever and artfully-created comedy, which makes them amazing to watch. I would love to get to watch this on the big screen.

Then there’s the casting – which has dated in the best way. It’s like a time capsule of actors who were famous in the 1970’s, many of whom aren’t really remembered now. Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Racquel Welsh, Faye Dunaway, Charlton Heston, Christopher Lee, Spike freaking Milligan, and of course the king of naive beta heroes, Michael York as D’Artagnan.

I’ve said before that D’Artagnan being young, brash and annoying is appropriate to any Musketeer adaptation. Michael York is the ultimate, as far as I’m concerned, example of this. His D’Artagnan is dumb as a stone, brave as a lion, and completely screws up on multiple occasions. He’s a complete dork. And yet, I can’t take my eyes off him. His earnestness is just so funny.

The word adorkable is going to be used more than once in this essay, and I’m not even sorry.

I laughed, I swooned, I enjoyed the hell out of this film. And now I’m a bit scared because Part 2 is gonna get darker, and I don’t know that I want to see my darlings having that kind of a rough time.

The film begins with a surrealist slow motion scene of Michael York with his shirt off performing sword skills with his dad. It’s… alarming. There are no other words. Any distress caused by our dorky (I’m just going to call him D’ork for the rest of the essay) hero’s bare chest is balanced out by the marvellousness of his country bumpkin straw hat, which is a thing of beauty. This D’Artagnan has a hat!

The early scene with D’ork and his D’ad makes it clear what kind of adaptation this is – one that is going to refer back to the actual novel as often as possible. I really loved seeing D’ad lecture his son about the importance of getting into fights, while setting him up for his journey.

“Don’t sell the horse! Let him die honourably of old age.”

D’ad is going to be D’isappointed.

Sure enough, the next scene in the film is ‘Rochefort pwns our boy while Milady flirts from afar.’

Christopher Lee playing Rochefort has obviously influenced all succeeding actors to make very similar choices. In fact, Musketeers in an Exciting Adventure With Airships (2011) pretty much copies this scene note for note including the appearance of Milady. The only odd thing is that he’s not using his CHRISTOPHER LEE voice. I didn’t know it was optional!

Michael York does gormless so very well, though I hadn’t yet fallen for his charms during these early scenes, so was left wishing I was watching him in Cabaret instead. There would be songs. On the other hand, watching Rochefort chuck D’Artagnan a muddy puddle is worth the price of admission.

I am on Team Rochefort for this one. Sign me up for the fan club, baby.

Faye Dunaway’s Milady is arch and sarcastic, and rather lovely. Like Christopher Lee, she’s underplaying the part to appear sinister and possibly to disassociate herself from the later outright sex comedy that the film will become. Oh, sweetie. It’s all going to end in an undignified scragfight, you might as well surrender now.

So now we come to our Musketeers. The three inseperables are not really the focus of this film, generally appearing instead as a kind of support chorus to D’ork’s hijinks, and occasionally showing off their glorious skillz whenever the occasion calls for humour, violence or both. I hope they get more to do in 1974!

Porthos is extremely middle aged, played by Frank Finlay who was in his 50’s at the time – despite his age, there’s no denying he carries off all the necessary character notes based on the book. I had to work very hard not to dislike him for not being Howard Charles. Richard Chamberlain was an inspired casting choice for Aramis – famous at the time for being heartthrob Dr Kildare, he would later win even more hearts in The Thorn Birds. As it is, unfortunately, he is given almost nothing to do as an individual except look blond and pretty. Then we have Athos, played by Oliver Reed, who always looks like he had to be dragged out of a pub for to film every single scene and deeply resents it, but that’s basically perfect for Athos. More good casting, that director. He’s rumpled, sarcastic and worn down, and yet I can see the charisma that made him such a massive star of the era.

All three of them inhabit the roles beautifully, but this movie is not about them.

D’ork’s job interview with Treville was the moment at which I realised that I might actually love him. He’s utterly useless, tripping over things and being awkward, when suddenly he starts screaming out the window at a passing Rochefort, calling attention to his eyepatch. It’s brilliant. He’s actually yelling abuse at a disabled person in the street, without any sense of irony. He then throws himself out the window, lands on a window cleaning scaffold, and thoroughly embarrasses himself. Oh, D’Artagnan. You are adorbs and I can’t pretend I’m not enjoying it.

The classic Musketeer meet cute is done very nicely here – even better because the large and sprawling set means that it feels almost like D’ork’s successive tumbles into Athos, Porthos and Aramis are part of a single shot.

Fun fact: this film was originally pitched as a vehicle for The Beatles. I only hope that in the alternate universe in which this happened, they had the sense to cast Ringo as D’Artagnan. Obviously John would be Athos, Paul would be Aramis and George would be Porthos. Anyone want to argue those casting choices in the comments?

I only hope someone somewhere has made fanvids using footage of this film with the soundtrack from A Hard Day’s Night. Don’t let me down, 1960’s-1970’s fandom.

In the climax to the meet cute, with the four about to duel before the red guards come along (and D’ork charming the Three Musketeers into taking him on as a pet), we finally get our first proper fencing set piece. It’s fantastic.

The swordfighting not only looks good and is choreographed as street brawling with all kinds of different techniques and parrying weapons (Athos’ use of a cloak is marvellous), but best of all is shot so you can WATCH THE FIGHT CLEARLY. The shots from above are especially good. The combination of physical humour and serious swordage is there too, with the dramatic use of criss-crossing washing lines to undercut the earnestness of the fighting.

D’ork is an adorkable puppy. The glee he takes in fighting alongside the Musketeers is hilarious and charming. I will never hear another word against this version of D’Artagnan. I want to take him home and feed him cookies.

Athos, the undoubted leader, distributes the spoils at the end: coin to Aramis for his mistress, to Porthos for his wardrobe and to D’ork for lodging and a servant. Athos of course needs a drink. Oh, my boys, I love you all.

Once D’ork arrives at his lodgings, (in a fancy new outfit including a Real Hat because unlike his 2014 counterpart he knows priorities when he sees them), the story truly begins. Spike Milligan plays Bonancieux and Roy Kinnear plays Planchet. Comic royalty on a plate. Racquel Welsh turns up as Spike Milligan’s sexy wife Constance and D’ork starts unashamedly eye-fucking her in front of her husband. Bow chicka wow wow.

Constance cements her status as hottest lady in these parts by falling down the stairs in a glamorous heap of skirts and boobs. D’ork thinks that’s the sauciest chat up line ever. She’s vaguely pleased to meet him. This sums up their relationship for the rest of the movie.

THEY ARE SO CUTE I WANT THEM TO RUN AWAY AND HAVE BABIES TOGETHER, CLUMSY SWORDFIGHTING BABIES.

Speaking of casting, HELLO CARDINAL WHO IS CHARLTON HESTON. In purple robes. Hello, chessboard played with live animals including monkeys and dogs. This movie is no longer even pretending not to be pure crack.

The Red Guards raid Bonancieux’s place, steal his wife in front of him, and give Spike Milligan as much airtime as he wants for another comedy turn. It is the slowest abduction in film history. D’ork, meanwhile, is sleeping mostly naked and does not notice. Some hero.

Constance rescues herself with a beautiful piece of slapstick involving a large pike, and throws herself at D’ork. He’s mostly interested in what’s under her voluminous nightgown, and she’s trying to explain the plot to him.

We then get an implied sex scene while the camera itself stares fixedly at a candle. I’m pretty sure this is the fastest that D’Artagnan and Constance have ever shagged in any version of the story ever. Well done, that D’ork! In the morning, she runs off to get on with the plot leaving him to follow her miserably and suspiciously in the rain.

UNEXPECTED POLE VAULT. Oh, D’ork, please don’t make me love you more than Luke Pasquilino, I don’t think my heart can take it.

Scheming Constance is scheming on behalf of the Queen (Geraldine Chaplin), as is only right and proper. D’ork is only thinking about himself and getting into Constance’s knickers, which is also very accurate to the book. I would like to point out at this point that Racquel Welsh won a Golden Globe for this performance, and she bloody deserves it.

The exchange between Buckingham (who looks a lot like Aramis, a nice canon-compliant point) and the Queen is also pretty much directly from the page – they’re a bit in love with each other, but she’s not willing to go all the way and disgrace the king. And oops, here come more guards to pick another fight!

The swordfight in the palace laundry that eventuates from the Queen’s secret meeting with Buckingham is a thing of beauty – a gorgeous set piece combining that classic combination of violence, parrying weapons and comedy. Our Musketeers all turn up with perfect timing to join the fight, almost as if they have D’ork microchipped in case he gets into trouble (well, you would). We get swords, ropes, dye vats, Planchet with a plank, and the kicker at the end is Buckingham politely thanking them all (“I probably could have managed, but thank you, gentlemen”) and running away, followed by Porthos saying “Who is that?” and Athos replying “I don’t know, but he sounds foreign.”

I love the fact that they are happy to get into a ruck with Palace Guards without even knowing or possibly caring about the political reason behind it. Oh, my boys.

Back in England, Milady De Winter plans to steal the diamonds from Buckingham, seducing him by way of a saucy white lace blindfold. You kind of had to be there. But oh, Faye Dunaway and her frocks. She’s given so little to do in this film, but the frocks almost make up for it. I bet she wouldn’t say no to a bit of Milla Jovovich cat-burglaring, though, if it was offered.

Nothing in the film so far compares to the glory of the next scene in which Porthos and Aramis stage a duel in order to steal wine and roast squab from a tavern because, well, Musketeers gotta eat. The calm expression on Athos’ face as he catches the discreetly flung squab and hides them under his coat is magnificent, and D’ork soon gets in on the action with youthful glee. Planchet steals wine with a discreet set of bellows and a straw, while D’ork actually throws his face under a leaky barrel to get his own drink.

Bonus points for the final scene in which the four proudly share their feast, in bed together. I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING WITH THIS.

Spike Milligan is a comic genius. So indeed is Racquel Welch. And, frankly Michael York isn’t half bad either. The adorable slapstick between the three of them over the matter of the letter to Buckingham culminates in Constance and D’ork not only hiding in a wardrobe, but falling over while still inside it. Their makeout antics are legendary.

Then we get a random scene in which Athos has far too much invested in Aramis and Porthos winning a game of real (royal) tennis, while D’ork tries to explain the plot to him. Seriously, this is the film that keeps giving. Musketeers, they screw around all the time, it’s wonderful. Sure, the three of them are almost extraneous to the plot, but they are having so much fun together. Did I say they didn’t have enough to do? I’m perfectly satisfied as long as there are scenes like this that add nothing but character, humour and adorbs.

I might be a little bit in love with Oliver Reed now. That’s a thing I never thought would ever happen in my lifetime.

Finally they’re on the road in the quest for the Queen’s diamonds. Porthos is lost when he duels a drunkard, Aramis with a bullet to the shoulder, and Athos to a duel in the river. Nice if brief moments for each of the characters to shine, especially the wet and furious Athos in his big black cloak who is foiled by a pesky water wheel. The look on his face does rather give the impression that no one warned Oliver Reed what was going to happen with the the water wheel. Head canon accepted!

Poor D’ork is left on his own except for the trusty Planchet! What is he to do? RIDE, D’ARTAGNAN, RIDE LIKE THE WIND!

And then there’s the duel in the dark fought between D’ork and Rochefort with blinding lanterns in which Planchet DIGS UP A TREE, runs across half the forest holding it, and uses it to knock Rochefort out.

“We’ll give him the chance of bleeding to death, but we’ll not murder him.”

D’Artagnan has this much morality left.

I love Rochefort but I almost wish they had killed him by Planchet with a tree because – what a way to go.

It was a very big tree.

Tree’d.

What I love is that whenever D’ork has to ride somewhere quickly, random slapstick people walk into his path with breakable or otherwise inconvenient props. In this case, a man with an enormous basket of eggs. I half expected someone to turn up walking a pane of glass across the road, and then a couple of workmen with a large plank.

On to England and the plot!

I think we’ve actually been doing Orlando Bloom a disservice back in 2011 – this Duke of Buckingham is only slightly less camp. He says things like: “Then sir we must bustle!” and randomly changes his clothes between scenes. Seriously. At one point he’s walking down a corridor, peeling off his shirt, and in the next room he’s wearing a completely different outfit.

He also has a creepy shrine set up to Queen Anne. With candles. I feel someone needs to stage an intervention about appropriate romance techniques.

Upon taking his leave with the diamonds firmly secured, D’ork gives a beautiful exit speech about how he needs no reward, only to undercut it by awkwardly coming back 5 seconds later to ask the Duke how to get off the island.

We then get two brilliant comedy stunts that are entirely gratuitous but cleverly done – one is Planchet clumsily riding into solid objects, and then Athos falls down a well and almost drags Aramis and Porthos down with him.

“All for one and one for all!”

Athos’ voice heard cheerfully from within the well. The only use of that phrase in this film.

So now it’s all about the King’s ball. Planchet dresses up as a polar bear to enter secretly. A polar bear. It suits him. Meanwhile, D’ork sneaks into the Palace gardens by getting his horse to kick a hole in the back wall. D’ork then recognises which room has Constance in it purely because she broke a vase and that’s a thing she does.

After some more fun fighting and scrambling, D’ork accidentally hurls the diamonds up to the wrong window (OH D’Artagnan, no) and then it all comes down to a vicious scrag fight between Constance and Milady, the latter armed with sharpened headwear. And the former armed with grapes. And they both have mighty bosoms which should be classified as lethal weapons. It’s on, baby.

Once again the Three Musketeers turn up to help D’Artagnan when he most needs them in a fight. Either they totally microchipped him, or all three of them are his Tyler Durdens, Fight Club style. They’re so awesome and yet convenient in the not asking questions about anything.

D’Artagnan climbs into the wrong window AGAIN, but swings across just in time to kick Milady literally in the arse, and allow Constance to get the diamonds.

The day is won.

The movie is full of win.

I love everything.

The King and Queen are adorkable, as he tries to count her diamonds in the middle of a complicated dance, and she out-smugs him and then the Cardinal by having the correct number of diamonds. Sucks to you, suspicious blokes!

Everyone is happy and oh so colour-co-ordinated. The silver headgear at this ball is spectacular. D’ork and Constance celebrate with one of the most ungainly snogging sessions of all time.

The next morning, in a ceremonial flourish, the Three Musketeers place a great tunic on their fourth, welcoming him into their club. The queen discreetly passes him a valuable ring as his extra reward.

It’s happy ever after, until the next time… and ominous looks all around from the cranky Milady and the Cardinal as our friends skip merrily off into the sunset, pausing only to pick Constance up off the ground when she is knocked over by a fairground attractions.

AND THERE’s A WHOLE OTHER MOVIE TO GO.

AND THEY MADE ANOTHER SEQUEL IN THE 80’s WITH THE SAME CAST BASED ON 20 YEARS LATER.

All is glee. You are welcome.

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