Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 57

Musketeer Space Part 14: The Madness of the Duchess of Buckingham

Musketeeeeer Day! Time for a little insight into a character who has only been peripheral until now. and that means going a step or two back in time.

Imagine everything going all wibbly wobbly flashbacky. Yes, just like in Blackadder’s Christmas Carol.

Wooooo.

Start reading from Part 1

Main Page & Table of Contents



PREVIOUSLY IN MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana D’Artagnan has accidentally stumbled across a conspiracy involving Alek the Prince Consort, his tailor Conrad Su, the Duchess of Buckingham, and the mysterious former PR minister, Chevreuse. But she only got half of the story…



NOW READ ON!

This chapter is dedicated to Stephanie Gunn, who also named Dubois’ spaceship. I hope you don’t mind it being used as a love nest. Thanks so much for your support!

Part 14: The Madness of the Duchess of Buckingham

One week ago.

Georgiana Villiers, Duchess of Buckingham and Ambassador of Valour (“Buck” to her friends), was ready to go home. The planet of Honour was appallingly hot from one end to the other, and the southern hemisphere was worst of all. If you were going to spend this much time in air conditioned bars and hotels, you might as well be on the moon.

Except, of course, she wasn’t allowed on the moon.

It was worse in Auster than it had been anywhere else. For most of this odd, awkward Grand Tour Of Stay Away From The Regent’s Husband, she had been able to relax and enjoy herself for the most part, visiting different cultures and communities across the nine continents.

Here in Auster, though, everything reminded her of Alek, and the unholy mess they had made for themselves half a year ago. So many of the local inhabitants had trails of metallic scales on their light gold-brown skin. They wore the scales like beauty marks, and damn it if they weren’t exquisite, every single one of them.

A whole country full of Aleks. Spirits save her.

The other New Aristocrats, the top families that Buck mixed with socially, all either knew Alek or had heard of him. Half the men and most of the women she had danced with at the Government Ball upon her arrival were related to Alek’s family. Since she had been up on Lunar Palais only six months ago, there were constant digs for gossip about his health, happiness, hair colour, fitness regime, and of course his beautiful wife who ruled the solar system.

Local boy makes good.

Buck was not going to tell them all the truth, of course – no one wanted to hear her confess that they had let a flirtation go too far, and it had nearly become a PR disaster of epic proportions, and that she still couldn’t stop thinking about him. That the eight years left on his marriage contract to the Regent had become a millstone around all of their necks.

Certainly no one wanted to know that Alek and Buck were still exchanging texts, discreet little conversational snippets on the subspace comms, on a daily basis.

He wanted to see her again, before she went home. And oh, she wanted to see him. There were no words to describe how much of a bad idea that was, but they both wanted it so very much.

A week to go before a Musketeer pilot arrived to escort her back to Valour, and Buck had still not decided what to do.

Meanwhile, with almost all of the formal events finally done, there was beer. Cold beer was the best thing about Honour in general and Auster in particular – the locals took great pride in keeping it as cold as possible, despite the ridiculously inhospitable weather.

Buck had only tried 30 of the Austerian Top 40 Local Beers in the bar nearest her hotel, and was determined to complete the list before that damned ship arrived to escort her home like a naughty teenager who had been caught kissing a boy from the wrong school.

She was settling down to a glass of something called Griffin’s Sweat when the door to the bar opened, and a Raven sauntered in.

He recognised Buck immediately, and came over to her. She took a mouthful of the beer, savoured its chill, and wondered what she had done wrong now.

“Your Grace?” the messenger said. He had a black cap pulled down over his head, which accentuated his pale skin and stone-grey eyes. “I have an urgent message from a Madame Marie Chevreuse.”

That, Buck had not expected. She reached her hand out for his clamshell, but instead he offered her a stud on his wrist to scan with her own. The ID code confirmed he did, indeed, come directly from Chev.

“Vocal message only?” Buck said, raising her eyebrows. “This should be fun.”

“I have permission to cover the drinks tab,” said the Raven. “If that helps.”

“It does indeed.” Buck waved him towards the bar. “Have them print me a glass of Desert Daughter’s Old Peculiar, and they can pull me a draught of that hand-brewed ale they make in the back shed, while we’re at it.”

Buck finished the Griffin’s Sweat while she was waiting for her messenger to return. It tasted better than it had any right to, with a name like that.

“Okay,” she said when the black-capped Raven had returned and the drinks were lined up before her. “Break it to me. What is my sweet Chevreuse up to over in Artemisa?”

“She’s waiting at your hotel,” he told her.

Buck spluttered into the Desert Daughter’s Old Peculiar, and slammed the glass down. “What the f -”

“She wanted me to break it to you gently,” said the messenger, with an apologetic smile. “I’m not very good at gentle.” He was attractive, especially when he smiled like that. At least Buck wasn’t so stupidly lovestruck that she couldn’t appreciate a fit man in uniform, even if it was the rather dull uniform of the independent messenger corp. “She’s here to join you on your flight home to Honour.”

“She doesn’t trust me,” Buck muttered. “Even my friends don’t trust me.” Damn it all. Guilt rose up in her throat like bile. Buck might have been inconvenienced by the events of That Night six months ago, but Chevreuse had been destroyed. Under formal exile from Honour space, this planet was the last place she should be. Chev could be arrested for this, all because she was afraid Buck might throw the last shreds of her own personal honour and diplomacy away for one night with Alek.

And hadn’t Buck still been considering exactly that, only half an hour ago? Chevreuse was, unforgivably, always right.

“I’m going to need more beer,” she muttered.

“That I can help with,” said the Raven.

“What’s your name?” Buck asked him, when the messenger returned with further examples from the Top 40.

“Slate,” he said, giving her an odd look. Perhaps people didn’t ask his name very often. Ravens were just Ravens – you saw them flitting about from place to place, but you didn’t need to know about them as individuals.

That was sad, Buck decided. Far too sad. “Are you married, Slate? Ever been in love?”

His eyes, if possible, became an even frostier shade of grey. “I was married once,” he said. “It ended badly.”

“Oh, endings,” Buck slurred, waving her glass at him. “Love affairs, marriages, all end badly. All badness. It’s the good bits you start out with, those are the good bits.” She was drunker than she had realised, drunker than she had intended. Truth bubbled up into her mouth like it wanted to be free. “Would you wait eight years for the man you loved?”

Slate the Raven gave her a strange smile. “That would depend on what I was waiting for.”

Buck felt the first prickle of danger, but it was too late. The bar dissolved around them. He stood out, clear and sharp against the fog, this man with a lovely face, all cheekbones and grey eyes and sad, sad smile underneath the black cap that didn’t suit him at all.

“You’re not a Raven,” she said as the pieces fell into place. “You’re… I don’t think you work for anyone.”

“Oh believe me,” Slate said, and his voice was different now, smooth like silk underwear and vintage brandy. “I’m getting paid for this.”

“Something in the beer,” Buck muttered, trying to stay awake.

“A little something,” he admitted.

“What’s your name?” she rapped out at him. “Your real name. Not Slate.”

He leaned back in his chair, regarding her thoughtfully. “You can call me Winter, if you like. It doesn’t signify, as you won’t remember this when you’re awake.”

“I am awake. Aren’t I?” Buck looked wildly around her, but the bar was frozen in amber. Her senses were fuzzy, blurring into each other. Nothing felt real.

“In one manner of speaking, yes, but in another… it’s complicated. I put a micro-stud in your drink which is burrowing its way into your brain stem even as we speak. That means you’re going to be very susceptible to anything I tell you.” Winter leaned in, and tapped Buck sharply on the side of the head. “I actually left the bar ten minutes ago. Urgent appointment back on Valour, you understand. Politics waits for no one. But look at me, sitting right here inside your head. I will see everything you see, and if you follow a path I don’t like, I can simply… correct you. Convenient, yes?”

Buck gazed at him, memorising every plane of his face, every sharp edge to his eyes, cheekbones, jaw. “It’s treason, then,” she whispered. “That’s the only reason anyone would go to so much trouble.”

“Oh, Georgiana, that’s hilarious.” He neither laughed, nor smiled. Winter was a good name for him – he was cold all the way down to his veins. “What a lack of imagination you have. The beautiful things we are going to do together are far more sophisticated than mere treason.”

“What, then?”

Winter’s eyes blazed into hers, like an ice comet powering through space. “Love first, then war. They go together so nicely, don’t you find?”

Buck forgot about the man called Winter who now lived inside her head. He was gone before she stood and left the bar, and made her oops-too-many-beers way back to the hotel.

She continued to not remember his existence when she found Chevreuse in her hotel room, and they had a blazing row about about promises, exiles, and whether or not either of them could be trusted to keep it in her pants.

They both conceded moral high ground on that one.

Later, once the friends had called a truce and the heavily pregnant Chevreuse was fast asleep on one side of Buck’s ridiculously spacious bed, Buck’s clamshell chimed. A text from Alek.

Are you asleep? he asked.

Too hot to sleep, she sent back.

I want to see you before you head home, he said after that. No flirtation, no pretence. It was practically business-like.

Buck stared at the message for a long time.

“Yes,” breathed a silken voice. She looked up, and was startled to see Winter sitting at the end of her bed. He was not in disguise any more – his hair was silvery, falling around his face. He wore grey and white pyjamas, a soft blend of silk and cotton that showed their quality and expense in every shimmery movement. His feet were bare, but he looked every inch an elegant New Aristocrat. There was an arch, moneyed confidence to him, which marked him out as being just like every other man she had known growing up, except for the hard edges around his lovely face. Oh, and the fact that he was living inside her head.

“You,” Buck said, remembering all at once in a wave of anger and nausea. “Is this it? The peace of the solar system hangs on this one moment, me texting yes or no to the Prince Consort?”

“One moment,” Winter scoffed, stretching out like a cat on the covers. He pushed Chevreuse’s foot out of the way, and she did not stir. Because, of course, he was not really here. “As if we would bank everything on a single moment. A chess game is full of moves and moments and decisions. Right now, my job is to get one particular piece to one particular place at one particular time. The rest is up to you.”

Buck stared down at her clamshell again. Yes, no, or maybe. She typed yes and I have a plan, and sent them both before she could change her mind.

Winter tilted his head back, smiling winsomely at her. “That’s my girl.”

“I might have said yes anyway,” Buck said angrily. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

“Oh, sweetness,” he said as if sorry for her. “The people I work for pay a lot of money to make sure there’s no such thing as a maybe.”

A few hours ago.

“You can still change your mind,” said Chevreuse for the tenth time as the Colin Guillaume, piloted by Captain Tracy Dubois, prepared for descent.

Buck and Chev sat in the seats against the back of the cabin, bickering in an undertone so as not to distract their pilot. They’d been lucky she was the one sent for them. Dubois was another old friend, who could be trusted to be discreet no matter how much she disapproved of what they were doing.

“We’ve covered everything,” Buck insisted. She could not think of anything but Alek, seeing him again, probably for the last time while his marriage lasted. A lot could happen in eight years. “Dubois has shielded her fin, so no one connects my flight from Honour to Valour with the ship that touched down briefly in the old dome on Luna Palais. Conrad will make sure no one sees Alek leaving the Palace…”

“We haven’t heard back from Conrad in two days,” Chevreuse snapped.

Buck wasn’t sure whether it was the pregnancy or the possibility of arrest that made her old friend so irritable. “You know why I’m doing this.”

Chev laughed at that. “I know why you say you’re doing it.”

“Alek is a wild card. Cooped up in that Palace, hardly any friends left. Do you know how many people there are down on Auster who care about him?”

“Enough to start a war, I expect.”

“Everything that happened last time… it was out of his control. Our control. If he never sees me again, he’ll resent the Regent and their marriage contract forever. He’ll be a sitting duck for any petty conspirator who figures out what buttons to push. But maybe, if I can talk properly to him, I can repair some of the damage that was done.”

Chevreuse looked at her with heavily lidded eyes. “It’s fascinating the way you manage to make this sound like you’re meeting him out of patriotic duty, and not just to get your leg over.”

“I’m impressed too,” said Winter, leaning against the helm. He wore a flight suit this time, but his feet were still bare. Those feet of his. They curled like cat paws against the cool metal floor of the Colin Guillaume. Winter played with Dubois’ cables, and tweaked at her flight suit, but she did not react to his presence. “I thought I was the master of compartmentalisation, but you leave me in the shade, Georgiana.”

Buck sighed, turning her eyes away from the bastard that only she could see. “You have no jurisdiction on this flight, Chev. You can’t stop me.”

“I know,” said her friend in a low voice, her hand resting on the curve of her stomach. “I was hoping you’d stop yourself.”

Now.

They didn’t talk.

Alek stepped up into Dubois’ ship, and let the sight-shield fall away so it was just him standing there, all gold and silver and green. He wore a peacock-coloured coat that glowed with diamond studs, a ridiculously showy outfit for a secret rendezvous. He looked sad and uncertain, beneath that fall of bright emerald hair. Everything that Buck had convinced herself that she would say to him fell away with the sight-shield.

She didn’t say anything. Instead, she kissed him, and he kissed her back, holding her face in his hands as if she was precious, unbreakable. He rubbed his cheek gently against hers and she felt the gentle tugging rasp of his silver scales against her soft skin.

“You don’t have to fuck him,” said Winter.

Buck gasped at the shock of it, the remembering. It happened that way every time, like a bucket of cold water, reminding her that she wasn’t here by choice.

Except, of course, she was. She was right here, doing exactly what she had promised she would never do. And they had a witness. A sarcastic, barefoot witness who had burrowed himself into her brain.

Alek kissed down her neck, burying his face in the swell of her breasts as he lowered the zip of her flight suit. “Buck,” he moaned.

Buck stared over his head to Winter who sat on the helm, feet dangling off the edge. Winter wore an Emerald Knights fan shirt now, over silver jeans. He waved cheerfully at her.

How could she communicate with the bastard without Alek hearing her, and thinking she was crazy? Not that Alek was interested in anything she had to say right now, his mouth hungry against her ear, and his hands catching hers, squeezing their fingers together.

“I mean it,” said Winter. “All that matters is that enough people think you’re banging away in here. It doesn’t make a difference to the Crown or the realm or the chess game whether you actually let him into your knickers.”

“No one will say anything,” she said in a whisper.

“I know,” said Alek, thinking that she spoke to him. He came up for air, gazing into her face. “We have good friends, Buck. They are all trustworthy -” He kissed her mouth deeply and she kissed him back, inhaling the scent of him, the taste. I will never have this again.

“Oh very trustworthy,” Winter said, and Buck was too busy tasting her prince to see him, but she could hear the smirk in his voice. “Still, secrets get out, Georgiana. One way or another, you and your man here will pay for tonight’s deeds.”

I won’t remember this, Buck told herself desperately. I won’t remember this. I won’t remember that he was here, ruining everything.

Alek knew something was wrong. He stepped back, not knowing why she hesitated – or, perhaps, thinking of a hundred reasons why she would. “Buck,” he said softly. “Have you changed your mind about me?”

“Never,” she said fiercely, and threw herself at him. “No one else matters. Not right now.”

His mouth on hers was hot, and hungry. They had waited for so long, to be together.

Winter laughed.

A moment later, Buck forgot that he had ever been there.

“Take that coat off,” she hissed, pulling the peacock garment roughly from Alek’s shoulders. “Take it all off.”

“Keep the coat,” whispered Winter in her ear, a final command before he disappeared completely. “Whatever happens, Georgiana, hang on to that coat.”

Later.

“I could come with you,” said Alek. They lay wrapped up in each other, mostly naked, on the floor of the small spaceship. Buck wore his jacket, bright with peacock colours and diamond buttons, and nothing beneath it. She never wanted to take it off.

“No,” she said softly. “We’re not that stupid.”

“Are you sure?” He nuzzled against her, his mouth making soft kisses against her shoulder, her collarbone. “I feel that stupid.”

This was why Chevreuse was here, Buck realised. Not to stop this one night of passion, but to make sure that was where it stopped.

Conrad and Dubois both served the Crown. Their contracts ensured that they had to obey, if Alek gave them a direct order. But Chevreuse was already in disgrace, in exile. As a mere citizen of the solar system, she was obliged to obey a reasonable demand from the Crown, but not to obey unthinkingly.

Chevreuse had spent her whole life cleaning up the messes left behind by the Crown. Buck had no doubt she would break a thousand rules to stop this particular catastrophe from becoming a reality.

And Buck owed Chevreuse more than she could ever say. The bonds of friendship would only stand so much before they shattered. There was another life waiting for them, elsewhere in the solar system.

“Shh,” she said, and stopped Alek’s mouth with a deep kiss. “We have this, right now. We can’t take more than that.”

Much later.

Valour. Finally, Buck was home.

Dubois put the Colin Guillaume down discreetly at the smallest space dock in Castellion, at the border between the county of Triomphe and the duchy of Buckingham. Normally Buck’s homecomings were more dramatic than this, with a party atmosphere and crowds of paparazzo chronicling her antics.

Perhaps she was getting old, because the thought of that made her want to drown herself. Quietly slinking on to the planet felt about right.

Her highest security comm stud started to fill with alerts as soon as she entered Valour space – messages, appointments, discreet requests for her attention.

She was home. Being in Valour space meant being bombarded all over again with the political issues of the day: the referendum on planetary independence, the ethics of terraforming the last unclaimed continent and, of course, the ongoing religious tensions between the Church of All, who had always dominated even the ground population of Valour, and the Elementals, who were growing in support.

Then there was the election, coming up in a year’s time, the one where Buck was expected to run for First Minister of Valour now that her political credentials had been bolstered by her term as Ambassador. If only the media knew how much of that term had been spent sampling the beers of Honour. Would that make her more or less popular with the voters?

It was a good thing Alek had not abandoned his wife to come with her – he would have only found himself tied to another woman who was expected to dedicate every hour of every day to politics.

Buck was tempted to wear the peacock coat through the space dock, one final rebellion. Instead, she hid it instead deep in her luggage, not wanting Chevreuse to know about the gift.

“Your skimmer should be here shortly,” Chev told her now. “And your entourage -” She checked her comm stud. “Oh, through here.” She led Buck to a small, bleak meeting room. “They’ll meet us in a minute – ugh.”

Chevreuse folded up like a piece of broken furniture, and Buck lunged for her, only just catching her in time. Slowly, she lowered the other woman to the floor. “Oh, shit. Is it the baby? Chev, wake up.”

Her friend’s skin was very cold and too pale, contrasting against the bright pink braids that framed her face.

“Chevreuse!” Buck said insistently, and raised her wrist to call for help through the comm stud.

A man cleared his throat. “My apologies for the inconvenience, your Grace.”

“Not now, we need -” Buck’s protest died in her throat. “You!”

It was the man in her head. That bastard Winter. But it wasn’t quite him – he seemed different. Shoes, actual shoes for once, covering those pretty feet of his. He wore a discreet grey suit, like he was one of the hundreds of bureaucrats she had to deal with every day in her usual life. Instead of the wild silver tendrils falling around the sharp planes of his face, he had dull brown hair that made him look like no one in particular. Even his grey eyes were muted.

Same cheekbones you could cut a sandwich with, though.

“Your Grace,” he said in an officious voice. “Allow me to introduce myself properly this time. As you can see, I am no longer disguised as a Raven as I was when we met so briefly back in Auster. I am Milord de Winter, brother-in-law to the Countess of Clarick. I am also the new Private Secretary of the Interior. I hold the portfolio for covert intelligence.”

Buck blinked, for a moment seeing double as that other Winter appeared behind his real life double, barefoot and blowing kisses at her. He wore black pyjama pants and a copy of the peacock coat that Alek had given her, over a bare chest. His hair was sleep-rumpled and silve. It was quite easy to tell one Winter from another. “What do you want?” Buck said, still holding her friend in her arms. “Is Chevreuse -”

“Please don’t worry about her, your Grace,” said Milord De Winter. “She will not take serious harm for this brief spell. I thought it best that we speak alone for a moment.” He smiled politely. “You’re going to open your case and show me the diamonds that the Prince Consort gave you.”

Buck closed her eyes tightly. Would this ever be over? “And then?” she snarled. “What happens after that?”

“You know the answer to that, sweetness,” said the silver-haired Winter that lived inside her head. “You’re going to forget all about me, as if I was never here. And then the real work begins.”

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, visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock COVER ART.

ROBOTECH REWATCH 12: Earth Sweet Earth

Robotech will be rewatched after these messages!

13. Blue Wind

Finally, the SDF1 approaches the Earth. As Claudia is snarky enough to point out, there’s still a massive alien barrier between them and their home planet, but it’s the closest they’ve come in a very long time.

The spies try to figure out how to function in civilian life by watching Sami and her co-workers who I will continue to NOT refer to as the Bridge Bunnies. They stalk them, and figure out that uniforms need to be discarded for more random clothes. Given that they are currently dressed in sacks tied up with string, the spies steal clothes from the locker room.

And of course because they don’t know anything about Micronians or indeed women, they don’t know the difference between male and female clothing. Bron finds a twinset and pearls that fits him and is quite pleased with it.

Lisa and Vermilion Squadron report on the aliens, but the other military brass from the SDF1 (who are only ever seen in meetings such as these) refuse to accept their findings, especially the numbers of Zentraedi ships. They laugh, patronise and mock the information. The idea that the Zentraedi might have millions of ships is hilarious!

Gloval has a plan to get the information to Earth, despite the negativity shown by the other officers. In the mean time he sends Lisa, Rick and the others off for some well deserved R&R.

The spies are dazzled by Macross City, and can’t quite see the military advantage of the bright lights and urban society. Still, it’s pretty! Bron finally realises that he is wearing a ‘female uniform’ when people stand around and laugh at him, which is very judgy of them. You would not want to be questioning your sexuality in this city.

Lisa and her boys are all promoted, and receive honours in a public ceremony. Nice! Minmei presents them with their medals and even kisses Rick on the cheek. She then dedicates her new song to the space heroes. It’s Stage Fright, which is all about her, and how she’s about to be a star. I’m not quite sure that she thought that dedication through… Mind you, I would have wanted to slap her if she’d gone with My Boyfriend’s a Pilot.

Lisa is delighted to return to the bridge as soon as possible, refusing to take her holiday leave. Because coffee breaks are more fun with friends! I like how we can see Lisa more relaxed and happy in her comfort zone – which is work, but work in her own environment. It’s only in the field that she gets especially snappish and unreasonable.

Rick, Max and Ben also try to get away with not taking their R&R, but Roy forcibly stops them joining a call to arms and sends them away to party or else. It’s a tough life in the military.

The SDF1 makes a break for Earth. Khyron attacks without authority AGAIN (seriously has he ever been ordered into the field to do some actual damage?), and the SDF1 transfigures into its Mighty Battloid Form to fight him.

Without Breetai around, it’s up to Azoria this time to haul Khyron back, and the two fleets face off against each other. Sadly, no one snaps their fingers or starts singing.

The SDF1 finally makes it home to Earth, splashing down in the ocean, and the humans rejoice at the sight of their own world again, and the real blue sky. Thank goodness all that is over!

14. Gloval’s Report

Cliiiip show! Man, remember clip shows?

Gloval attempts to reconstruct the story so far, using snippets from previous episodes. My nine-year-old was a bit outraged about this, and I couldn’t blame her. The concept simply did not make sense in her brain.

The first time I saw this episode, I was grateful for it – I’d only seen a few episodes at that point and had missed most of the juicy stuff, so the Story So Far helped catch me up on missing details. Raeli has never known a world in which she couldn’t just find a copy of that thing she missed, and catch up on it.

But in a world of DVDs, iView, iTunes and of course, YouTube, the clip show concept has vanished as swiftly as the direct novelisation of episodes. Oh boy, remember novelisations of episodes? I collected the Buffy ones like mad because it was easier than finding them on VHS. THAT’S HOW OLD I AM.

The oddest aspect of this particular clip show is that it tells the story through the plot highlights, without the interpersonal drama context. Which pretty much misses the point of why I was watching Robotech.

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 13 – Conspiracy is Bad For the Blood Pressure

Happy Musketeer Day, Musketoons! I am not here. I am not even in Australia. I might not yet be in London yet, either. I am Schroedinger’s Author.

Of course, it would be THIS chapter that would go up while I’m away, wouldn’t it…

The Musketeers themselves are taking most of the next couple of weeks off. There is Other Plot that does not require their presence. But rest assured, they’re off causing trouble somewhere even when we don’t get to see what they’re up to.

Start reading from Part 1

Main Page & Table of Contents



PREVIOUSLY IN MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana’s desire to be a Musketeer pilot in service to the Crown has led her to a few dodgy places over the last couple of months, but none dodgier than this – she’s stumbled across a conspiracy on the moon involving Aramis’ secret girlfriend, Aramis’ ex-girlfriend, and Aramis’ ship – not to mention the Prince Consort’s recently-kidnapped tailor, Conrad Su, who is also Dana’s landlady’s much younger husband, and far too hot for his own good. Just go with it. It’s all going to be fine.



NOW READ ON!

This chapter is dedicated to Tehani Wessely, who supports and enables so much of what I do in my career, and Musketeers too.

Part 13: Conspiracy is Bad For the Blood Pressure

Conrad caught Dana before she reached the hatch. The gravity was softer here than in the main dome, a little spongier underfoot, and he of course was better experienced than she was in dealing with shifting gravity. He slammed into her back, one elbow crunching hard between her shoulder-blades.

She fought back, tucking and rolling, slicing at his legs with her feet. She didn’t even think about drawing her stunner, not that he gave her time to do so.

His head took her in the stomach, and she punched the side of his face, struggling to be free of him. His arms were grappled hard around her waist, though, and when they hit the surface of the moon with only a slight bounce, Dana was underneath.

For a man only a little taller than her, Conrad had a lot of muscle to him. He also had an arc-ray beneath that soft civilian shirt of his, and he now drew it, pointing the bead directly into her face.

An arc-ray, not a stunner. Lethal.

“Who sent you after us, Dana?” he whispered.

“No one sent me,” she snarled, shifting her weight to see if there was any give in the hold he had her in. “You know who I am.”

“I know you convinced Planchet you were on the side of the angels, but if a burning comet promised that girl a spaceship to play with, she’d follow it like it was a puppy.” Conrad breathed slowly, in and out, his hand steady on the arc-ray. “Who are you really, and why did you follow me?”

“Who are you?” Dana whispered back. “And what the hell have you got yourself into? Whatever the three of you are doing here, it’s hardcore treason. And you made me a part of it.”

“I didn’t invite you!” he said incredulously. “You made yourself part of this.” Then he looked at her, as if he could read her intentions just by extremely close eye contact. Whatever he saw, it made a difference.

Conrad rolled off her and stood up, holstering the weapon beneath the concealing swing of his royal blue coat. “For the Crown,” he said, testing her as he had before. “Everything I have done here tonight is in service to the Crown. God help me.”

Could she honestly say the same? Had she followed him out of curiosity, jealousy, or genuine patriotism? Dana felt vaguely ashamed of herself. He was right. She had invited herself into this mess.

“For the Crown,” she whispered. “Always.”

He held out a hand, and helped her to her feet. “Come and join the Royalist pity party. We have coffee.”

As they walked back towards the dart, his fingers remained tangled in hers. She did not pull her hand away.

Dubois and Chevreuse had made themselves comfortable on the surface of the moon, beside the Morningstar. Though now she came to look more closely at it, Dana was not certain it was the Morningstar after all. There was a shimmer about the tail that made her wonder if another sight-shield illusion was in play here. Could they do that, make a ship tattoo look like any other?

If they could make a person invisible, why not?

Dubois sipped coffee from a thermos cup, and Chevreuse produced a pack of cards which she lay out in an elaborate pattern on the white rock beneath them. They both glanced up warily as Conrad and Dana approached.

“Oh absolutely,” said Chevreuse, shifting from suspicious to sarcastic with barely a second’s pause. “That’s an excellent way to keep a low profile, Conrad. Bring a date.” She leaned back, and Dana realised for the first time that the other woman was pregnant, quite substantially so, with a large dome of a stomach visible as soon as you saw her at an angle.

“This is Dana D’Artagnan,” said Conrad. “She helped me get away from Captain Cho’s ship earlier, and she’s reliable backup. Aramis would vouch for her, they’re friends.”

Both women raised their eyebrows at that, and Dana remembered she was looking at Aramis’ current secret girlfriend as well as her ex.

“Actual friends,” Dana said with more emphasis than was strictly necessary. “Does she know you’ve got her ship?”

“Pretty, isn’t it,” said Captain Dubois fondly. She touched a stud at her wrist, and the tail fin of the dart shimmered suddenly, the pattern shifting from stars and fleur-de-lis to a different image of sword hilts tangled in vines, with the silhouette of a mountain range high across the top of the fin. It was the tattoo from the Parry Riposte. Athos’ ship.

“Don’t do that,” Dana growled. “You’re implicating them in whatever’s going on here.”

“Aramis owes me a favour, she can wear the inconvenience,” said Dubois, her hand going back to the stud as if to return the original illusion.

“Athos owes me nine,” said Chevreuse. “Leave it as it is.” She surveyed Dana thoughtfully. “So you don’t actually know why we’re here? Would you prefer it to stay that way?”

That was a good question. Conrad’s hand was warm in Dana’s. She was well and truly compromised now, and curious to know what exactly she was compromised about. “I assume if you were merely conspiring against the Cardinal, or the Regent, or the Musketeers, you could do it somewhere a bit more comfortable,” Dana observed, waving a hand around the mecha graveyard.

Dubois laughed at that.

Chevreuse wore a rather grim expression. “Oh for a warm tavern and a simple conspiracy.”

Dubois finished her cup of coffee, looking Dana and Conrad up and down like she was working something out. “D’Artagnan, you said? I have heard of you.”

Dana fervently hoped that whatever the glamorous pilot had heard did not in any way involve a photosilk. “You’re taking the Duchess of Buckingham home,” she blurted. “To Valour. Isn’t that right?”

“Ten out of ten,” said Dubois. “An official assignment from the Crown, no less. I’m not the one breaking rules to be here. Well, mostly,” she added with a slightly ashamed look at Chevreuse, who made a rude gesture in her direction. “Coffee?”

“And me,” said Conrad, finally letting go of Dana’s hand. “Lots of sugar, Trace. It’s been a long week.” They both found seats on the hard, pitted ground. Dubois filled a cup for each of them from the thermos tube, while Chevreuse flipped cards back and forth in a game of her own devising.

“A simple mission,” said Dubois. “Buck has playing diplomacy across the various continents of Honour ever since the Great Exile…”

“Less of the great,” said Chevreuse, screwing up her nose. “Can we call it the Shit Exile? Captain Dubois here was given the job of taking our worthy Ambassador back home now her term of service is up. Implied in that order, of course, was to make sure she bloody well went home by a direct route. Do not pass Lunar Palais, do not collect 200 credits.” She gave Dubois a dirty look.

“And given how much the well-being of the entire solar system relies on Buck getting home without being caught in the presence of his Royal Highness, the Prince Consort…” Dubois continued, returning the dirty look with one of her own. “We thought that the best possible chance we had was for Chev here to travel to Honour, meet Buck on the ground and keep damned close to her for the entire trip, while Conrad stayed here on Lunar Palais to prevent the Prince from making contact.”

“It was a workable plan, right up to the point that Rosnay Cho abducted me, keeping me incommunicado for the last several days,” groaned Conrad. “And guess who took the opportunity to make lots of subspace messages to his ‘family’ back on Honour?” It was his turn to shoot a dirty look, this time to Chevreuse. “I don’t know what the excuse at your end was.”

Chevreuse’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Forgive me for assuming she wasn’t completely self-destructive,” she hissed back. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Illicit sex has inspired so many bad decisions across history,” sighed Dubois, leaning her head back against her ship. “So here we are. Champions of the fucking solar system, with an emphasis on the fucking.”

Dana looked from one to the other of them. “It’s an affair, then?” She was almost shocked at the simplicity of the explanation. “Not some big political conspiracy, it’s just an affair?”

All three of them groaned and shook their heads.

“Of course it’s big and political,” Chevreuse said. “It’s the Prince Consort.”

“It’s technically treason,” said Conrad, sounding depressed.

“It would be the perfect excuse,” explained Dubois. “To get rid of Alek, at the very least – the Cardinal has never been happy about the Regent marrying an Elemental New Aristocrat. But it could bring down the Regent, too. If one of her brothers turned up at the right time, putting on a moral front in the face of her scandal…”

“There’s not going to be a scandal,” said Chevreuse between gritted teeth. “Oh, I hate this. I need to be in there, at the Palace, doing my job. That big-toothed hologram they hired to replace me will never save the Regent from this catastrophe.”

“He’s in there with her right now, isn’t he?” Dana said carefully. She had figured that much out. Dubois’s ship was playing host to the dangerous liason, while the Prince’s friends sad outside and complained about it.

“The trouble is, I can’t actually refuse his orders,” Conrad explained. “That’s the curse of serving the Crown.” He sighed heavily. “I brought him here under a sight-shield. No one will know. We can do that much. Chevreuse is right. There doesn’t have to be a scandal, as long as…”

“As long as they don’t get it in their thick heads to elope,” Chevreuse whispered, not even wanting to speak the words. “That’s what we’re really here to prevent. There will be no evidence that they spent the night together – clearing up that kind of mess is what I do best – and as long as they go their separate ways, we’re done.”

“How do you make sure of it?” Dana asked. “I mean – is it enough that Dubois still has her orders to get Buckingham home?”

“Yeah,” Dubois said, looking just as sick as the rest of them. “Except that Buck is an Ambassador. That gives her royal fucking privilege. The flight contract specified she was not to be allowed to land on Lunar Palais, through any of the three docks. But -” She waved a hand around the barren landscape of the secondary dome. “Loophole. Maybe they should have given her your job, Chev. She’s sneaky. No one’s given me orders to make sure the Prince Consort stays on the moon where he belongs.”

Dana frowned. “If you couldn’t keep them apart tonight even with all of you working on it together, what on earth makes you think they won’t keep trying to see each other?”

There was a long, painful pause.

“You need to find him someone else,” Chevreuse told Conrad sternly.

“My job description does not include getting my boss laid,” Conrad snapped back.

“Oh, really? Because tonight suggests otherwise.”

“Wouldn’t that just be more treason?” Dana suggested. They all turned expressions on her that made her feel about twelve years old.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if it was anyone but Buck,” said Conrad. “Too political. She’s not just aristocracy back on Valour – if they ever get their referendum through to secede from the system, Buck is prime candidate to be their first Regent. And she’s Elemental, on top of it, so there’s the religious shit in there too. Any hint of an alliance between Alek and Buck would read as a conspiracy, even if it is just two people who fancy the hell out of each other.”

“Fancy,” Chevreuse teased, mocking him.

He leaned forward, and punched her lightly on the arm. “All we can do is hope they aren’t 100% stupid and self-destructive.”

“Cheers to that,” said Dubois, and they clinked coffee cups.

To Dana’s great surprise, there was no more talk of politics after that. They talked TeamJoust, mostly, with Chevreuse interrogating Conrad about the player who had replaced her with the Emerald Knights, referred to only as “The Lamb.”

Dubois joined in, knowledgeable about many of the teams they often faced, and Dana found herself able to follow most of the chatter thanks to the games she had attended with Porthos. She was even able to contribute a comment or two when they switched to discussing an upcoming Cinquefoil game between Serpentine and the Mousers which promised to be especially violent thanks to an emotionally fraught team lineup.

They no longer felt like conspirators who had failed to save their master from falling into the wrong bed; it was a gathering of friends. Dana found to her great surprise that Aramis, Porthos and even Athos had trained her, somehow, over the last couple of months, to make endless friendly conversation. It had been a skill that had always eluded her, back home on Gascon Station.

Conrad slung an arm around her shoulder at one point, and she leaned against his shoulder, choosing to forget that he was married to her terrifying landlady.

It was nice.

Finally, the hatch opened and their prince emerged, concealed beneath the sight-shield again. He and Conrad made their farewells to Chevreuse, who tipped Dana a mocking salute before she joined the Duchess of Buckingham inside the dart that still bore the same fin tattoo as Athos’ Parry Riposte.

Both women, and Conrad too, looked utterly relieved that the prince was parting from his lover after all. The alternative had been terrifying.

“Don’t worry,” said Dubois, before she returned to her helm. “It looks good but I’ve left a deliberate error or two in the illusion – if we’ve missed any security feeds, and someone gets a screen grab, it will be an obvious forgery.”

“You’re so reassuring,” Dana said dryly. She rather liked Dubois.

“In fact,” Dubois said cheekily, and made an adjustment to her wrist. Her Musket-class dart shimmered and took on an entirely different skin: gold instead of pearly white, sprinkled with scarlet stars in a regimented pattern. Even the engines and fin looked a different shape, for all the world as if the dart was Sabre-class.

“Now that’s a good look for you,” Dana said, with some relief that Athos wouldn’t be getting in trouble for this night’s work.

Dubois winked, and let herself into the ship.

Conrad stood a little way away, appearing to be having a polite argument with thin air. He broke off as Dana approached. “This is Mecha Cadet D’Artagnan,” he said. “She’ll be our extra security detail.”

There was an odd shift to the air as the prince turned towards her – the artificial scenery rippled a little, though he remained invisible. “My thanks, Mecha Cadet. If Conrad trusts you, I am sure that I can do the same.”

Dana tried to look as official as possible. “We should move,” she said.

The three of them made their way back through the mecha graveyard, and the tunnel that led back to the main dome. Conrad led them through into the gardens of the Palace. “We should wait until we’re closer to the living quarters,” he said. “Before we…”

But the Prince Consort had already shrugged off the sight-shield, as if sick of all the deceit. Alek of Auster looked just like he did on the holovision, only a lot more dishevelled. Dana had only ever seen him in beautiful suits before, or TeamJoust armour. Today he was in the trousers of a beautiful suit, with a rumpled shirt over the top.

Conrad rolled his eyes. “Didn’t you come out with a coat, your Highness?” He shrugged his own royal blue velvet garment off, and put it over the Prince’s shoulders. The Prince accepted this as his due, strolling amiably along the paths.

“I gave it to a friend,” he said carelessly, grinning at nothing in particular.

If Dana had been in any doubt about what had been going on in that spaceship tonight, she would have known from that shit-eating grin. She dropped behind them both, playing the silent bodyguard.

Conrad was furious – he carried it all in his shoulders, but it still spilled over into his voice. “That’s all we need,” he muttered. “Never mind the paper trail of tonight’s activities, you left a clothes trail as well.” They walked along in silence for a moment. “Which coat?” Conrad suddenly asked, as if it had been weighing on his mind.

The Prince gave him a happy, ridiculous look. “You’re not going to begrudge me a coat, my friend?”

“I make all your coats!” Conrad said impatiently. “Each one take weeks of design, and is hand-printed as a one-of-a… no, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Whatever your Highness needs.”

A pause, as they circled the Fountains of Tranquility, a majestic natural stone formations from the surface of the moon, which had been enhanced by sprays of Artifice water, dancing in loops and rivulets. It was a common sight on tourist posters of Luna Palais, though Dana had never seen it before. There was no time to do more than glance at it now.

“Yes, it does matter, actually,” exploded Conrad finally, on the verge of being extremely rude to his Prince. His exhaustion from the days of captivity was beginning to fray his diplomacy. “What were you thinking?”

Prince Alek patted him. “It’s all going to be fine.”

Conrad looked utterly defeated. “Just as long as it wasn’t the peacock coat. It wasn’t, was it?”

The Prince kept walking along the path of marble tiles.

“The one you haven’t even worn in public yet?”

“You can print another copy,” Prince Alek said, pitying Conrad for minding so much about petty details.

“Princes aren’t supposed to wear copies,” Conrad huffed. He turned at that point, miming his frustration to Dana, who hid a laugh.

They walked through room after room of exquisite garden art, Dana making a mental map as they went so that she did not get lost again.

Conrad stopped, very suddenly. The Prince walked a few steps before he realised, and turned back with one beautifully arched green eyebrow. “Conrad?”

It wasn’t a joke any more, or a minor costuming inconvenience. Conrad looked like death warmed up. “You removed the diamonds off it first, didn’t you?” he asked. “Before you took the peacock coat for a casual night-time stroll in the Palace gardens? You removed the twelve diamond studs which were loaded with the culture bank of Honour? The ones your wife gave you for your birthday last month?”

The Prince just looked at him.

“I’m going to be executed,” Conrad whispered.

“They made her eyes sparkle,” said the Prince. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Conrad just made a small sputtering sound.

“I wanted to give Buck something nice, something important – you know she’s going back to Valour and they’re never going to let us see each other again? My marriage contract lasts for eight more years!”

“Yes,” said Conrad quietly. “I know that, your Highness, that’s why I risked life, limb, my reputation and my career to let you have this meeting together.”

They looked at each other for a long time, and then the Prince smiled casually and turned back towards the Palace. “Lalla-Louise has bought me many gifts over the years. I am sure she won’t even notice.”

Conrad stayed where he was standing, for a few moments later, as the Prince went on without him.

“I should go back to barracks,” Dana said awkwardly. “I bet you’re wishing right now that I had done that in the first place so I didn’t overhear any of that.”

“You’re not the one I’m worrying about,” said Conrad, and reached out to her hand. “Though maybe that makes me as much of an idiot as…” he stopped himself, and shook his head. “He’s usually smarter than this,” he added, plaintively. “Honestly, you’re not seeing him at his best.”

Dana nodded. “I believe you.”

“You don’t sound like you believe me.”

“I’m trying really hard to believe you.” It was obvious that Conrad cared deeply about the Prince despite the other man’s incredible and obvious idiocy.

Conrad laughed. “You know, if he had decided to go with her, not one of us would have had the power to stop him.”

“Wars have been started for less,” she agreed.

“I know it looks like Chev and I made a disaster of things tonight, but… it could have been worse.” Conrad groaned, and buried his face in Dana’s shoulder for a moment. “I’m so tired. There should be a law against how tired I am right now.”

Dana patted him on the head. “You should catch him up before he accidentally proposes to a potted plant, or blurts out his night’s activities to the Regent over late night cocoa.”

Conrad laughed into her shoulder. “Love makes people ridiculous.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Though Dana was having a terrible urge to thread her fingers through his bright blue hair, and that definitely felt like it would cross a line of ridiculousness.

Conrad looked up, then, and met her gaze with his. “You’re young,” he said. “You’ve got time.”

That would be the moment for her to tease him – who couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than her – about being such an ancient married man, but Dana couldn’t bring herself to make a joke about that.

“We’re done?” she asked, instead.

“You’re done,” Conrad said firmly. “My drama continues.”

“If I can ever be of help again -”

He nodded once, and then turned away to leave her again, following his ridiculous Prince.

“Wait, Conrad,” she said, feeling like an idiot. “Which is the quickest way to the mecha barracks?”

Conrad came back for a moment, and pointed down an avenue of Artifice roses bursting out of floating teacups. “Keep going down that way until you reach the glow in the dark daisy clock, and take the hedge path past the seahorse spheres. They come out near the croquet lawn, and there’s a gate in the wall on the other side that leads directly to the East Wall.”

Now she felt less like an idiot for asking. She would never have found it on her own. “Good night.”

Conrad blew her a kiss, jogging backwards along the path. “You’re spectacular, Dana D’Artagnan. I owe you.”

Dana had not stayed a night at the barracks for weeks, but she had arranged to meet Planchet there once they were both done with their parts of the adventure. She found the young engie fast asleep on her bunk, surrounded by snoring mecha cadets. The girl looked worn out, but peaceful.

Dana sat on the edge of the bunk, and Planchet stirred. “Did we save the day?” she asked drowsily.

“Yes,” Dana lied. “That is a thing that we did.” Apart from being sworn to secrecy, there was no way she ever wanted Planchet to know what a massive waste of time their “heroic mission” had turned out to be.

Still, the Prince Consort hadn’t actually run away with his lover to a planet that was making rumblings about independence. That counted as a win, right?

“Was fun,” Planchet muttered, turning over to make room for Dana. “Can we do it again?”

Dana paused, and then lay down beside her, balancing precariously on the edge of the narrow bunk. She would just close her eyes for a minute. “Sure,” she said. “Any time, Planchet.”

It’s hardly worth lying down, it’s not like I ever sleep on the Moon, was Dana’s last thought for the next twelve hours.

She dreamed of flying, and peacock coats that scattered diamonds through space like a pattern of falling stars.

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, visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock COVER ART.

Galactic Suburbia 106 Show Notes

New episode ready for streaming or download!

In which the Galactic Suburbia crew discuss the future and present death of blogs, explore our personal relationships with social media (but mostly Twitter), and stage a memorial ceremony for the death of Livejournal. WE LOVED YOU, LIVEJOURNAL.

News



Patreon!! Spoilerifics!! Oh my!

Pet Topic

Future redundancy: The death of blogs?

What blogs do you still read? What blogs are the key places to find out about shiny new things?

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Tansy: Intelligence

Alex: Risk: Legacy; Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett; Beacon

Alisa: yes we really are going to make her throw a book away every single time. She… reinterprets the terms challenge. But the results are worth it.

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook, support us at Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/galacticsuburbia) and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

An August of Tansy

Some bits and pieces of news to catch you all up to date before I leave for London.

My short story “Cookie Cutter Superhero” was just released in Kaleidoscope, a YA anthology of diverse teenage stories. I’m really delighted that so many people have been enjoying this story and the world – even if it does mean I am getting daily requests to turn it into a novel! There’s a lovely review of my story here at Brewing Tea and Books, and Eugene Myers wrote a nice review of the whole anthology at League of Extraordinary Writers.

Pozible supporters should have their copy of Kaleidoscope already; if you didn’t support the campaign, you can buy it right now in most countries though the official Australian release date is not until 1 October.

Meanwhile, another book release! Tehani at Fablecroft has released an e-collection of my Pratchett’s Women essays, following the development of female characters across the Discworld novels. The book contains all nine Pratchett’s Women essays that have appeared here on the blog, starting with the original “The Boobs, the Bad and the Broomsticks” which remains by far the most viewed page ever published on this blog, at over 13,000 hits. All essays have been revised for this edition.

The (unauthorised) essays cover various issues to do with feminism, invisible wives, fairy tales, fatness, gender performance, motherhood, witchcraft, romance and identity in the Discworld. The book includes one bonus essay which is exclusive to the e-edition: “Socks, Lies and the Monstrous Regiment,” which covers the extraordinary feminist achievement of that particular novel, and explores my discomfort with how my 20-something self reacted so differently to the book than I do now in my thirties. So if you’ve read all the other essays for free you might still like to get hold of the book for completion’s sake. I’m pretty sure I have not yet said EVERYTHING I have to say about Pratchett’s Discworld and the women who live there, but this is me done for now.

There’s more! I’m going to be at LonCon this coming week. If you are also going to be there and want to get in touch, Twitter is probably the best way to go about it. Here is my official presence on the program, which I’m putting here for my own reference as well as for those of you who might want to come check out what I’m doing:

Friday, 15 August

4:30pm

Signing: Tansy Rayner Roberts, Ramez Naam, Mur Lafferty, Richard Calder, Michael Swanwick, Catherynne M. Valente, Elizabeth Bear, Chris Achilleos

Exhibits Hall Signing Space (ExCeL), 4:30pm – 6pm



Saturday, 16 August

8am

SFWA Meeting. I don’t know where this is. I’m sure it’s all going to be fine.

12pm

The Review is Political

Capital Suite 2 (ExCeL), 12pm – 1:30pm

Kevin McVeigh, Abigail Nussbaum, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Elías Combarro, Alisa Krasnostein



Every review is a political act because every review makes choices: about which aspects of a work to focus on, what context to provide, which yardsticks to use, and more. And while no choices are neutral, some can be the default — a focus on plot and character, for instance, and less discussion of style and politics. What other defaults can we identify in SF and fantasy reviewing? How are reviews that depart from those defaults challenged? Are any defaults changing — and if so, how can we help that process along?

1:30pm

The Daughters of Buffy

Capital Suite 4 (ExCeL), 1:30pm – 3pm

Foz Meadows, L. M. Myles, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Sarah Shemilt



At the end of last year, to mark ten years since the broadcast of the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the BBC, Naomi Alderman made a special edition of the Radio 4 programme Front Row, featuring interviews with cast, creator, and critics. Among other things, she asked what the show’s legacy had been, and whether the right lessons — female characters written as well as men, given as much narrative importance as men, and surrounded by other women — had been learned. Following on from her discussion, our panel will ask: who are Buffy’s heirs? (And you can listen to the original programme here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03m7zmq)

Sunday, 17 August

10am

Awards and Their Narratives

Capital Suite 10 (ExCeL), 10am – 11am

Tom Hunter, Stan Nicholls, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Simon Guerrier, Tanya Brown

As one of Saturday’s panels discussed, many factors come into play when judges or voters decide which books to recognise with awards. But what happens afterwards, over the years, as the list of winners grows? As an award develops a “canon”, patterns will emerge, different maps of what we should be valuing in science fiction and fantasy. This panel will discuss the maps drawn by different genre awards — from the Hugos to the Clarkes, from Tiptree to Translation, from Aurealis to BSFA — and the ways in which readers make use of them.

3pm

You Don’t Like Me When I’m Angry

Capital Suite 10 (ExCeL), 3pm – 4:30pm

Mary Anne Mohanraj, Martin McGrath, Stephanie Saulter, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Nin Harris

Commenting on the portrayal of Magneto in X-Men: First Class, Abigail Nussbaum noted that there is an “increasing prevalence of vengeful victim characters, who are condemned not for the choices they make in pursuit of revenge, but simply for feeling anger … There is in stories like this a small-mindedness that prioritizes the almighty psychiatric holy grail of “healing”–letting go of one’s anger for the sake of inner peace–over justified, even necessary moral outrage.” Which other stories — on TV or in books, as well as in films — follow this template, and whose interests do they really serve? Where can we find depictions of the power of anger, and/or other models of anger?

Monday, 18 August

11:30am

Reading: Dr. Tansy Rayner Roberts

London Suite 1 (ExCeL), 11:30am – 12pm

Almost certainly going to read “Cookie Cutter Superhero”. Unless there is an overwhelming majority vote for Musketeers…

ROBOTECH REWATCH 11: Single Sex Spaceships Are For Girls Too

Robotech will be rewatched after these messages. This is the episode where humans (Micronians) figure out how to use this snogging thing strategically.

But more importantly, THE GIRLS ARE BACK IN TOWN!

You know how boring it is when any given alien race in a SF TV show are all played by male actors, not because of some grand statement about gender, but as a lazy default? Up until now it has looked very much as if the Zentraedi were an All Boys Outfit, but this is the episode where it all changes

Zentraedi women kick arse, in case you were wondering.

Episode 12 – The Big Escape

Thank goodness we have the narrator to explain the plot. This is what the aliens plan to do next:

1. Recover the SDF1 intact, with the hidden protoculture factory on board.

2. Destroy the earth

3. Figure out what protoculture is

4. Profit

More specifically, they have brought in a new commander – Azonia, who is in charge of one of the ladies only fleets. She will be flying into action near Earth (have they actually left Khyron there with no supervision? That seems like a Bad Plan) with the specific mission of sending a micronised Konda, Rico and Bron in to live undercover on the SDF1. Proper spying!

Obviously male Zentraedi are only allowed on the lady ships if they are a different size to them, to prevent hanky panky. I’m not sure why there is such a firm segregation between genders in the alien fleets if they are all socially conditioned to find romance and sex basically disgusting anyway. But the show is pretty much based on the premise that you only have to put men and women in a room together and they start trying to stick their tongues in each others mouths, so who am I to argue with the show?

Rick, Lisa and Ben are still prisoners. Rick and Ben muse on the weird reaction that the aliens had to that whole kissing thing, and consider trying it again to cause a distraction so they can escape. Sadly for the slash fandom, they are still not remotely prepared to kiss each other, even for science. Lisa can see where all this is headed, and flies into a rage against Rick, accusing him of trying to trap her into smooches, despite the fact that the last one was entirely HER IDEA.

As those two lay into each other in yet another epic squabble (okay, okay, I’m starting to actually see what the narrator was banging on about with these two several episodes ago), Ben comes up with a new plan, for him to kiss Lisa instead. No one likes this plan other than Ben.

Lisa gets over herself remarkably quickly after the possibility of Ben stuns her into reasonableness, and she prepares to pucker up (with Rick, obviously) as soon an alien comes by their cell. Their Snog Strategy only hits one major problem – it’s not an alien at all, but Max come to rescue them! He has dressed his Battloid up in a Zentraedi uniform, which is an adorable piece of cosplay, and places all three of them into his giant pockets so they can make their way out.

But of course he still has time to tease the hell out of Lisa and Rick for kissing on the job. Because why would you not?

They’re separated in the escape and Rick and Lisa make an amazing discovery – cloning vats, where the Zentraedi not only create new life, but also can reduce themselves down to human size. Lisa suspects this has something to do with the whole Protoculture thing.

They’re grabbed by an alien soldier and get into a tussle. Lisa is distressed when her precious video camera is damaged (someone get this lady an iPhone), and Rick has a stack of massive guns fall on him. But mostly she’s upset about the video. Rick shoots a giant gun at the alien, rescues Lisa, and has to talk her out of yet another ‘I’m crying all over the place because my mission is a failure, you go save yourself’ situation.

Oh, Lisa. Please try to be a better role model for women in the military, this is just embarrassing.

I don’t want Lisa to be steel-coated the whole time, but it’s bizarre the way she swings from ‘all is lost, leave me here, I want to die, wahhh’ to ‘I am awesome commander, obey my orders bitch’ with no middle ground at all. No wonder the poor dear is stressed all the time. She needs some more therapeutic kissing, possibly with someone who is better at it than Rick.

Lisa and Rick get stuck somewhere in the ship (he makes a habit of this as a way of progressing relationships, should we be suspicious of how often he is mysteriously trapped by spaceship architecture?) and discuss their situation – what the Zentraedi are after, Lisa’s history as a daughter of a military family and how her academic achievements tend to scare people off, Rick’s confusing and unsatisfying romance with Minmei, and Lisa’s sad lack of a boyfriend.

Yes, really.

Finally, having come to a new understanding with each other that for once does not involve shouting or snogging, Lisa and Rick catch up with Max and Ben, and all four of them hitch a lift on a shuttle heading for the SDF1.

It’s commanded by Azonia, with Miriya as first officer. Excuse me while I squee my head off at the sight of Miriya, whom I love beyond all things. Look at her, being all military and amazing. SO GOOD AT HER JOB. Off they go to deliver the three spies to the SDF1 – and how convenient that our Micronian stowaways want to go to the exact same place!

Lisa has regained her confidence and is all smug commander again. It’s such a good look on her. Even her hair looks shiner when she’s giving proper orders and embracing her general awesomeness.

As Azonia’s ship emerge from hyperspace, everyone is greeted by the music of Minmei. Mixed feelings all around!

Miriya shows her amazing flying skills as she makes it past all the human defences, breaches the SDF1, drop the spies inside the fortress without being spotted, and heads back to Azonia, all without breaking a sweat.

Miriya, don’t think I didn’t consider naming one of my daughters after you. TEAM MIRIYA.

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.

1 – So Much For World Peace

2 – Who Put Pluto There?

3 – To Be In Love

4 – Welcome to the First Chinese Restaurant in Space

5 – Saturn Ahoy!

6 – Death by Flashback

7 – Dating in Deep Space

8 – Beauty Queens & Battloids

9 – It’s Not Easy Being Vermilion

10 – Even Educated Fleas Do It

Snapshot: Ben McKenzie and John Richards

Ben McKenzie is a Melbourne-based actor, comedian, writer, feminist, improviser, voiceover artist, presenter, game mechanic, scientician, rogue nerd and ginger. He’s also one of the organisers behind the recently crowdfunded Girls On Film Festival 2014. John Richards is writer of the acclaimed ABC1 comedy Outland, and former host of the iconic Melbourne-based TV podcast Boxcutters as well as a filmmaker, media journalist, and presenter. Check out John’s upcoming workshop on podcasting.

Together, they FIGHT CRIME. But more importantly, they make magic. In 2013, The Year of Doctor Who, Ben and John created Splendid Chaps, a Doctor Who live show podcasting event spread over 12 months. In 2014, they spun off from this project to run a successful Kickstarter campaign for Night Terrace, their very own comedy science fiction audio series, starring Susan from Neighbours and a house that travels in time and space.

It seemed appropriate to interview them together…

You’ve been working this year on Night Terrace, a SF audio series that you crowd funded via Kickstarter. How is the production going, and why should we be excited about the end result?

John: We’ve finished recording and our sound wizard David Ashton is in the middle of sound design and editing. And it’s amazing. Well, the listeners will decide if it’s amazing, but I’ve been absolutely thrilled at the results. We have an astonishingly high-powered cast, who were all happy to take part because they loved the project so much. So many people off the telly! And I think it works both as comedy and as science fiction, which is exciting.

Ben: Yes, that was one of the things I was really keen on about this project. Kind of like early Red Dwarf – the comedy doesn’t just spring from parodying sci-fi clichés, but rather tells interesting sci-fi stories that are full of character comedy and jokes. It’s been such a great collaborative process, not just working with the amazing cast – though Jackie Woodburne is a dream to work with! – but the whole creative team. I came up with the basic premise of a woman who had retired from saving the world for a secret organisation, but the team added the house that starts randomly travelling through time and space, the idea of my character, the hapless student and door-to-door salesman Eddie, and “Sue”, this sinister presence who just keeps showing up in impossible ways… All these things mixed together brilliantly! It ended up being both lots of fun to write, though also quite hard work at times, keeping the jokes and plot flowing and all in a 25 minute episode.

Splendid Chaps was a massive undertaking last year, a monthly live show and podcast celebrating every era of Doctor Who. What did you take away from the experience?

John: It was one of the best experiences of my life. I met so many amazing people and was exposed to so many great opinions and perspectives. Not just on Doctor Who, but on life itself. I sound like a hippy. But we really did meet such fantastic people, guests and audience alike. Even discovering that people at Big Finish listened to it!

Ben: The little community that gathered around us was so wonderful! I don’t think we expected that to happen. I mean, it’s not like we were huge, but to consistently sell out these little rooms all over Melbourne and have the same people coming back time and again… Two relationships started from people meeting each other at Splendid Chaps! We worked hard to make the show feel inclusive and welcoming and I think we managed to pull that off.

John: The episode on Doctor Who and Religion was incredible. I felt honoured to be able to listen to these clever, passionate and honest people discussing their views and experiences on religion. I remember thinking at the time I’d never imagined I’d ask a priest how she could possibly believe in god, let alone in front of an audience in a pub during a show about Doctor Who…

Ben and John with Petra Elliott – splendid chaps, all of them.

Ben: I still catch up with Avril now! And we’ve made friends with many of the other guests too. Having guests was absolutely the best decision we made; all those different voices made sure it wasn’t just the Ben and John and Petra show! We learnt so much and met so many great people.

John: I also get to count Ben McKenzie and Petra Elliott among my super-bestest friends now, which is clearly a win.

Ben: Awwwww, John…I feel that way too! Though of course we only ever get to see each other when we’re working on Night Terrace these days…

John: I also remember my absolute thrill of standing in the wings for our Christmas show, watching Petra and a full band performing a sexy version of “I Want To Spend My Christmas With A Dalek” – with a Dalek – and thinking “this moment shouldn’t exist, but it does. We made this happen”. The music section of the show was my absolute favourite, hearing people reinterpret and reinvent all these strange novelty Doctor Who songs, and then the awesome Casey Bennetto wrote and performed an original number for us which was an absolute honour.

Ben: The songs were so great! I also loved Lee Zachariah’s parody of Gangsta’s Paradise, and the covers of all those terrible Doctor Who songs – including Australian ones! Georgia Fields did an amazing cover of the Bullamakanka one, Keira Daley assembled an all-star band for an obscure track by Jackson Zumdish, an Adelaide group…I still can’t quite believe those things happened. I listen to those songs often.



I kind of hope that after this there will be more Ben-and-John-and-the-team productions, because I’ve loved all of your collaborations so far. What can we look forward to from you both, together or separately, once Night Terrace is done?

John: The Splendid Chaps team is the best. Ben, Petra, David and new pseudo-chap Lee Zachariah are wonderful people to both work and have coffee with. I love the fact that we managed a collaboration in the middle of Splendid Chaps, in the stage show Songs For Europe: Two Short Plays About Eurovision (directed by Lucas Testro). I was very proud of how that come out. We’re doing Night Terrace, obviously, and it’s been such a great experience we’ve all started discussing ideas for season two. We’ve been throwing around ideas for a festival-of-geekery but Ben is always doing a million projects so we’ll get to it eventually. And I think we’re all aware there’ll be more one-off Splendid Chaps shows sometime.

Ben: It’s not a million, John… But it is a lot. At the moment I’m working on the team for a new feminist film festival, the Girls On Film Festival, I have a few other podcasts in the works, I’m designing two major projects and another festival with my live games company Pop Up Playground, and of course then I have to have a job or two that pays the bills…okay, maybe it’s a million! I do hope eventually we find a good excuse to do another Splendid Chaps show, though, there’s so much more to talk about. We keep mentioning the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who in Australia, which is early in 2015, I think? That might be a good enough excuse, but we’ll only ever do one-offs now. The want to keep the original year as something special.

John: Meanwhile I have three TV series floating around in various states of development, I’ve written some sketches for a BBC radio show, I do pop-culture features for DNA Magazine and I’ve been teaching courses in podcasting.

What Australian SF stuff have you enjoyed lately?

Ben: I have so many projects I barely get to read much of anything these days; the closest to Australian SF I have at the moment is more fantasy! I recently picked up a copy of Justine Larbalestier’s new book “Razorhurst” at the Melbourne launch, and I’m really looking forward to starting it. I loved her collaboration “Team Human”, which was a kind of anti-Twilight, as was Van Badham’s “Burnt Snow” which I read last year with my little book club. I’m also really keen to get into Sean Williams’ Twinmaker series, since I’ve been seeing snippets he’s been posting from the upcoming third book, and I love a good exploration of a sci-fi concept most works take for granted!

John: Catherine Smyth-McMullen just sent me one of Norma Hemming’s original plays to read. It’s called The Matriarchy of Renok. It’s from 1958. I’m on the cutting edge of Australian science-fiction.

The media and publishing world has changed so much over the last few years, with new platforms, business models and technology emerging all the time. How has this affected you creatively, as writers and performers, and how do you see it affecting your work in the future?



Ben: It hasn’t made much of an impact on my work as a live performer – except that you sometime encounter this expectation that if someone misses a show, they’ll be able to watch it on YouTube! Like an iView for live comedy. But I am passionate about crowdfunding. There are so many platforms now with different models and I think it’s such a brilliant way not only to fund artistic projects bit increasingly an artistic career; to make it viable by appealing directly to the people who are gonna love your work, rather than a massive distributiion company or publisher who only wants things they can sell to millions and make huge profit on. We can operate sustainably on a much smaller scale, and that’s really down to the Internet.

John: Splendid Chaps and Night Terrace wouldn’t exist without the rise of the internet and the growing audience for web-content. I have a perverse love of the way that the idea of a“mass audience” is dying. The future will belong to Hulu and Netflix, not Channel 9. Places people can see the shows they are passionate about, not just the ones they’re willing to sit through. The financial models are still working themselves out, but we’ll get there. Australian television will never make Night Terrace, and in some ideal alternate universe there’s a series 2 of Outland playing on Hulu!

=====

This interview was conducted as part of the 2014 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’ll be blogging interviews from 28 July to 10 August and archiving them at SF Signal. You can read interviews at:

Tsana Dolichva

Nick Evans

Stephanie Gunn

Kathryn Linge

Elanor Matton-Johnson

David McDonald

Helen Merrick

Jason Nahrung

Ben Payne

Alex Pierce

Tansy Rayner Roberts

Helen Stubbs

Katharine Stubbs

Tehani Wessely

Sean Wright

Musketeer Space Part 12: An Assignation at the Mecha Graveyard

It’s Musketeer day again! Conspiracies, mecha, romance and the spaceship equivalent of grand auto theft. Thanks so much for joining me on this wacky adventure. I’ll be away from the computer for the next two Wednesdays, but my trusty silent producer will do his best to keep the show on the road.

I still haven’t quite got over reaching my $200 milestone which means the festive Christmas prequel story is go. Next milestone, at the $300 mark, means I’ll be commissioning artwork, for here on the blog as well as the final ebook. I’m longing to have my Musketeers depicted in art, so that’s where we’re headed next.

And in the mean time…

SEE YOU IN LONDON, MUSKETOONS!

Start reading from Part 1

Missed the last installment? Track back to Part 11

Main Page & Table of Contents



PREVIOUSLY IN MUSKETEER SPACE: Dana D’Artagnan is a Mecha cadet who longs to be a real Musketeer like her friends Athos, Aramis and Porthos – and that means getting into as much trouble as possible. Right now she’s tangled up in a Royal conspiracy, having just rescued the Prince Consort’s tailor and teammate Conrad from the Cardinal’s secret agent Rosnay Cho. And she stole a spaceship. Did I mention that Conrad is super pretty? It’s worth saying.

NOW READ ON!

This episode is dedicated to the epic and most excellent Cat Sparks.

PART 12: An Assignation at the Mecha Graveyard

“We’re actually doing this,” said Dana, sixteen minutes later as they prepared to roll the Moth out of E-Dock. She had twelve separate cables plugged into the back of her helm, three of them feeding smooth threads of data directly into her brain. Thanks to Planchet’s hacking skills, the Moth had welcomed her as an old friend and trusted pilot.

Fly, darling, come fly with me, we’ll see the solar system together…

“Bon chance,” said Aramis over the comms. She had elected to remain in Paris. She had also slipped a pearl stunner into Dana’s pocket before letting them go – Dana did not usually bear arms when not on active mecha duty. “I’d come along for the ride, but Porthos has her hands full and I have a feeling I might need to save Athos from himself.”

Dana frowned, her hands stretching over the smooth controls. “What’s up with Athos?”

“Don’t get distracted,” said Aramis’ honey voice. “I’ve been rescuing Athos since you were a teenager. So, last week, basically.”

“Hey,” Dana protested.

“Fly straight, baby doll,” said Aramis. “The moon is the big white thing you’ll spot on your scanner once you’re in the air.” She signed off the comm with an electronic trill.

This ship felt amazing inside Dana’s head.

“Two minutes,” said Porthos in her ear. “Get out while the going’s good. We want to see nothing but a clean, empty space when these cam feeds hum back to life.”

“A clean, empty space I can do,” breathed Dana.

Oh, she loved this ship. She hated how good it felt beneath her hands, and inside her head.

Dana had learned on darts, musket-class and otherwise, and could fly just about anything up to and including the very slow venturers that were used to ferry personnel back and forth between Paris and Lunar Palais. She had tried out a few fighters here and there, usually for testing purposes, but had never flown a Moth fighter of this quality before. The Moth was roomier than the dart, while still being streamlined enough to cut beautifully through the atmosphere.

It was like steering silk. Dana barely had to think her commands, and the ship responded with a light touch, reflecting subtleties of thought she didn’t even know that she had.

Space wrapped itself around the Moth, and pulled them in.

“Luna Palais Tertiary Dock, this is Control,” repeated the helm inside Dana’s head as they made their approach. “Identify.”

This was the difficult part. But Planchet had a hack for every occasion, in this case turning the ID chip stolen from Rosnay Cho’s engie into a profile avatar and voice simulator.

“This is Engineer Chretien Foy, Moth 286921,” Dana said, reading off Planchet’s clamshell tablet.

“Where’s your pilot, Foy?”

“This is a maintenance run only, regulation 68A.” Engineers could fly ships solo for freight or service as long as they were travelling distances of four hours or less, within chartered space. “Just put in a new set of power spheres, now running tests in all atmospheres,” Dana added, on impulse.

Conrad was smiling at her from the co-pilot’s seat. He had a good smile, that made his eyes brighter than his hair, and that was saying something. He really did have the most ridiculous hair. It wasn’t just the artificial neon blueness of it, it was the spiky texture and the silver tips to those spikes, that matched the scales that ran naturally down both edges of his face. “Don’t embellish,” he mouthed at her.

She gave him a rude gesture in reply, and he laughed.

“We can’t give you a spot for another hour, Moth 286921,” said Control. “Can get you a berth on Secondary Dock much sooner. How long will you be on the surface?”

“Triple shift if you have it,” said Dana.

“I can give you a double.”

“I’ll take it.”

Dana muted the comm and prepared for landing. “Well done, Planchet,” she tossed behind her.

“I think she’s asleep,” said Conrad, amused.

Dana craned her neck behind her. Planchet was strapped into one of the aft seats, her head lolling against the humming wall of the ship. “She deserves it,” she said. “Saved my bacon at least three times today. Will you make your appointment?”

Conrad tapped the blazing sapphire stud that he wore implanted on his ring finger, checking the time. He then leaned over Dana’s arm to call up a map of the dock they were heading for, and transfer it to his stud. It was odd to have someone seated beside her. She hadn’t flown with a co-pilot since first year training. “Just,” he said. “I’ll have to hustle along the Triumph to make it. The Secondary Dock is closer to the Palace, but I won’t have the benefit of the bullet train.”

Dana longed to ask what it was that was so important, but she kept the thought hard inside her chest. Curiosity was a bad thing, when state secrets were concerned.

Conrad touched her shoulder briefly. “Thank you for helping me, Dana. If I had a vote, I’d have you in Musketeer blues already.”

She ignored the compliment, which made her feel strange, and set about the landing protocols instead.

As they descended through layers of airlock to the dock below, Dana felt the familiar leaden weight in her stomach. Lunar gravity was all the worse now that she had been flying a real ship, and had to give it up.

Fly again, pleaded the Moth in her head as she executed a textbook perfect landing in the allocated berth. Her shoulders sagged. She didn’t want to let go.

Gentle hands came around to disconnect her from the helm, one cable at a time.

“That’s Planchet’s job,” she protested dimly. “She needs to practice…”

“I’m sure she is capable of doing it in her sleep,” said Conrad. “But I’m closer.” He leaned around Dana, releasing the catch on the helm. “Easy does it.”

She felt bereft as he lifted the helm up and set it into the correct module, ready for its real owner to reclaim it, once she realised her ship and engie were on the moon.

Then Conrad was back, feeling her pulse and staring intently into her eyes for a moment, to check her pupil size. Routine checks, performed as if he did them every day.

“I thought you were a tailor,” Dana said.

“I have many skills,” said Conrad, and then proved it by kissing her.

Dana’s senses were already firing in all directions after that short, glorious flight in a ship that knew how to sail the stars instead of slowly chugging through them. The loss of helm response was like a cold bucket of ice water over her brain, and here she was heating up all over again.

Conrad was warm and confident and confusing. Not to mention, married to her landlady. But Dana still kissed him back. His warmth was more than welcome.

Leaving Planchet to clear up the last of the crime scene (including record deletion, strapping an unconscious Engineer Foy in the pilot seat, and faking a post-dated passage for Dana and herself on a civilian shuttle), all of which which she seemed anxious to work on without them getting in her way, Dana and Conrad made a speedy path across Paris to the Palace.

They caught a tram up the Boulevard Triumph, which had been deemed of too great historic and artistic value to be spoiled by a bullet train, despite such trains having been invented long before a city had been built here on Lunar Palais.

Conrad grew more nervous and agitated as they neared the Louvre, and he had not tried to kiss her again. Dana was not sure which of these things was most concerning her, but she stuck with him in any case, to make sure for herself that he at least made it as far as the Palace without being abducted again.

Rosnay Cho was going to spit chips when she realised her ship had been stolen, and Dana couldn’t help grinning at the thought of it. She wished she could see the look on her face, and then wondered idly if Porthos’ Ed could arrange that via security cam.

“This is our stop,” said Conrad, and all but flung himself off the tram. Dana caught him up, and they plunged together through a gateway into the maze of gardens that surrounded the Palace.

Commander Essart’s Mecha Squad were housed in the East of the city, and Dana had got to know the Palace grounds pretty well in her time here – but not the private gardens, which were indulgent and sprawling, concoctions of carefully designed Artifice mixed with genuine, delicate flora from every habitable planet in the solar system.

Each garden led into another, as if they were rooms in their own right, and every one of them was spectacular. Dana didn’t get to see much, moving at such speed through it all. Finally, Conrad stopped. “You’d better clear off,” he said. “You shouldn’t be seen at the Palace. Can you get back to barracks, set up an alibi for yourself?”

“Well I can,” said Dana, a bit hurt. “Are you sure I shouldn’t see you inside?”

“There are live cams all along Moonflower Walk,” he said, gesturing to the arch up ahead. “That takes me directly into the Council chambers, and no one will touch me there. I’ll be fine. And my Prince needs me.”

Dana was superfluous, then. “Look after yourself,” she said sternly. “You might actually need rescuing next time.”

“Oh, let’s not pretend you didn’t rescue me,” he said, with that smile that lit up his face, however tired and stressed he was. “I’d be locked up in a cell with my wife right now if you hadn’t got involved – and no one wants that.”

Dana had forgotten about Madame Su. What on earth were they going to do about that?

“Watch your back,” Conrad said to her. “You’ve made some dangerous enemies today, whether you know it or not.”

This is what I always wanted, Dana thought in a sudden rush. Adventures, and adrenalin, all in service to the Crown. Her heart was still beating fast from all that hurrying through the gardens. “I’m dangerous too,” she said.

To his credit, Conrad did not laugh at her. He looked at her for a long moment, and then nodded. “I wouldn’t want to get on your wrong side,” he said, and strode away along Moonflower Walk.

No more kissing, then. That was probably for the best.

What followed was highly embarrassing. Dana had been so busy following Conrad and keeping her eyes out for danger, she had entirely failed to take note of the route they had taken through the private gardens of the Palace.

Either that, or the Artifice was glitching and had scrambled the order of the garden rooms when she wasn’t looking. Possibly both. Maybe this was actually a cunning security system, to dissuade thieves and assassins.

Whatever the reason, she spent the next hour getting thoroughly lost. So much for returning quickly to barracks. She couldn’t activate any of her studs without pinging her identity all over the Palace proximity systems, and she knew for a fact that there was no detailed map of the private gardens available to any but those of highest rank.

She was going to have to find her way out by old-fashioned means. If only she had a ball of string about her person.

Dana had given up on ever escaping these wretched gardens alive, and had draped herself over a large ornamental rock to think through her options, when she heard voices. One very familiar voice.

She sat up, and crept over to a wall of bright peach Freedom roses, a famously ugly flower that managed to grow to twice its native size here with all the primping and water it had been allotted.

Dana peered through the web of thorns and saw, of all people, Conrad Su walking along a marble path. He had changed his suit and showered, his blue hair forming damp spikes. His coat was a deep formal blue velvet with gold embellishments, which made him look far more like the formal courtier he was supposed to be.

He was still pretty, though.

“Last chance to turn back from making the biggest mistake of your life,” he said, quite clearly, as he passed Dana, and she thought for a moment that he was addressing her. But then, to her surprise, she heard another male voice respond to his, close by, though he still appeared to be alone.

“Shut up, for God’s sake,” said Conrad, sounding completely fed up. “I sacrificed sleep in my actual bed for the first time in days for this, don’t forget that.”

Dana let Conrad and his apparently invisible companion pass, and then followed quietly.

It was curiosity, of course, about that mysterious appointment which had agitated him so much that he burned his way out of a ship that had been his prison for days. And, she had to admit to herself, at least partly it was because he might be leading her out of this ridiculous maze of an ornamental garden.

If there were other reasons for following the attractive athlete with blue hair, she would not admit to them, not under bribe or torture.

It was getting dark, which was just inconvenient. Dana was used to a shift-based lifestyle. Space was always dark, and if you wanted day, you turned the damned light on. This idea of being subject to the whims of planetary bodies was… strange.

But the paths were lit with hidden lamps and glowstones, and having this much shadow did make it easier to follow without being seen.

Finally they were out of the formal gardens and walking past rec hubs, and then a large private dock of Royal vehicles. There were a few people working here and there, and Dana kept to the dark, shadowing Conrad who was acting as if this kind of stroll was completely normal.

Where on earth was he going? And why drag Dana nearly all the way to the Palace only to turn around and leave again?

They emerged on the East side of the Palace, and now she had her bearings quite clearly. She was only a few minutes from the Mecha hub where her barracks were located. No excuse at all, to keep following Conrad to his mysterious appointment.

But then she realised he was heading past the practice yards, and towards the tunnel that led to the mecha graveyard. That fired her curiosity even more.

When Lunar Palais was first built, hundreds of years earlier, it was considered too dangerous to have ships constantly coming in and out of the main dome. The only space dock then had been set up in a secondary, much smaller dome, with a tunnel connecting the two. This secondary dome was disused now, except as a storage space for abandoned tech that was too big to keep anywhere else, and had not yet been pillaged for recyclable parts. Old spaceships, building units and especially rundown old mecha clotted the area, so walking through it was like exploring a rusting former battlefield.

Mecha Squad Essart and their engie crew sometimes held drinking parties here, among the debris and broken-down vehicles. When a suit was smashed beyond reasonable use, there would be a ceremonial drag-and-ditch, to which all members of the Squad were not only invited, but expected to participate. Dana had also sneaked in here once or twice on her own in the early days, so she could get extra mecha practice away from the kind but mocking eyes of her friends and/or her new squadmates.

There had been no terraforming here, nothing to disguise the surface of the moon as anything but what it was – a pitted, rocky landscape that looked like death. Dana liked it out here better than within the proper dome of Luna Palais – it felt more honest, somehow.

She had not thought about the fact that, as a former spacedock, the dome must be fully-functional.

Up ahead of her, past a heap of severed steel heads and giant armour, Conrad stopped in a recently cleared patch of ground. He stood in the flickering pool of light from a neon beacon, looking absolutely exhausted. His companion was obviously nearby, as that light caught the occasional movement that should belong to a person, despite whatever shielding they were using. Dana hid in the shadows of a nearby disused hangar. Guilt stung her briefly as she caught something like despair on Conrad’s face for a moment before he hid it behind something more polite and diplomatic. Did she have a right to spy on him just because she had partly rescued him today?

Dana was about to turn and leave when she heard a sound so familiar to her that she could not move her feet.

The plexi-glass above them shifted and rotated out in layers, allowing for a ship to descend. Dana caught her breath as she watched it come down. It wasn’t just that it was a musket-class dart, which automatically made it beautiful in her eyes. It was familiar. A scrolling pattern of fleur-de-lis and sacred constellations tattooed its back fin, clear enough that Dana knew the name of the ship. It was the Morningstar.

It belonged to Aramis.

She had missed something. If Dana should have learned anything from her time in Paris it was that the Musketeers had their own secrets, many secrets, and a history she did not share. Whatever secret assignation was happening here, Aramis was involved, and she had kept it from Dana even while helping with the escape back on Paris. Humiliation burned through her as she stared down the ship.

The pilot emerged first, wiping flight-gel from the white-blond stubble of her scalp, and stretching her legs. She was a Musketeer but not Aramis at all. It was Captain Tracy Dubois. Dana had seen more of than she should thanks to a certain personal photosilk belonging to her friend, but they had never met in person. Dubois wore full Musketeer uniform, but you would have to be a long way away to mistake her soft pink face for Aramis’s honey brown tones.

Captain Dubois spoke briefly to Conrad on the ground, and they shared a handshake of forearms gripping each other, colleague to colleague. She used greater deference in nodding to Conrad’s companion, the one that no one could see. Then she opened up the side hatch of her ship.

A woman stepped out, in a silver flight suit. Her hair was long and braided in loops – no longer purple, but a violent pink colour. Dana knew this woman too, if only by vid-image and reputation. She was the exiled former Minister of PR and former Emerald Knight, the one called Chevreuse.

Another of Aramis’ lovers, which meant Dana was holding her breath, waiting for her friend to emerge as part of this blatantly conspiratorial group. Instead, a third woman emerged from the ship, bronzed and beautiful in a scarlet flight suit.

Buck. The Duchess of Buckingham. She had not been formally exiled from Lunar Palais but she was most definitely not supposed to be here.

A conspiracy against the Crown, then. It had to be. And Dana had helped Conrad set up this illicit gathering! She was in so much trouble just for witnessing whatever the hell was going on. She had to get out of here.

Dana turned and ran across the pitted surface of the moon, putting them all behind her. But in this charged, silent atmosphere, she could not help her feet scuffing the ground, and the noise of it sent echoes in all direction.

Not fast enough to escape. She heard the heavier footsteps of pursuit, and ran faster.

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, visit my Patreon page. Pledges can earn rewards such as ebooks, extra content, dedications and the naming of spaceships. My next funding milestone ($300 a month) will unlock COVER ART.

Snapshot: Foz Meadows

Foz Meadows is a bipedal mammal with delusions of immortality; she also writes fantasy novels, makes with the geeky criticism, and loiters with intent in the presence of cheese. An Australian expat, she now lives in Scotland with a philosopher and a Smallrus. Surprisingly, this is a good thing.

1. Congratulations on your Hugo nomination for Best Fan Writer! Your blog has formed a core part of your writer identity for so long – which piece of your “fan” critical writing are you most proud of?

Thank you! It’s still a bit weird to me that I have regular readers: in one form or another, I’ve been writing online since my early teens, but it’s only in the past year or two that I’ve actually started to develop an audience. Which inevitably colours how I now perceive my own work, because I can never tell how a given piece is going to be received, and that makes me a bit biased in favour of the stuff that gets less widely circulated. I still don’t have any one thing that I’m most proud of, but generally, if I come away from a post feeling like I managed to articulate something important in amidst all the ranting, then it goes in the win column.

2. Since the last Snapshot you became a mother for the first time. How has this affected your writing, both the creative and practical sides of the work?

Weirdly, is the short answer. I’m still me, possessed of the same desire to sleep until noon and stay up writing until 3am, but it’s slightly harder to manage when a small, demanding person requires your attention on a 7 to 7 schedule. Particularly when I was pregnant, and then again when my son was still under a year old, general exhaustion, mental fatigue, depression and health issues all made it hard to write regularly, and if there’s one thing that’s been a staple of my life since I was about ten, it’s that I start climbing the walls pretty quickly when I can’t write, or if I can’t write as much as I want to. This second year has been much, much better, and in the past month especially, I’ve been able to hit daily wordcounts that are closer to what I was doing pre-child, which I’d worried I just wouldn’t be able to manage any more, and that… that is a relief, frankly. Because, I mean, I love my son! I really, really do. But you can love your children without being ready or willing to sacrifice the most integral parts of yourself on the altar of motherhood just because there’s enormous social pressure to do so. Adjusting your life doesn’t mean abandoning everything it used to entail, but when people collectively assume it does, it becomes much harder to justify making the effort.

More than trying to find time to write as a new mother, what upset me most was the idea that I shouldn’t be trying at all, that I should just accept that it had ceased to matter. I’d meet other parents, mostly other women, and I’d try to ask them about what they did outside of childrearing, what jobs or hobbies they had, and somehow all these previously solid conversational gambits just turned into dead ends, like, “Oh, I used to do that, but now I don’t, so let’s change the subject.” Nobody would ask what I was interested in or what I did, and I still get really upset at playgroups, when people default to introducing their children but not themselves, like we’re just extensions of them now; or worse, when conversation about the things I care about, like narrative and culture, are deemed taboo, because we should all be talking about our kids instead, or about “neutral” topics that can’t possibly offend or exclude anyone. And to put it bluntly, fuck that noise. I’m a mother and that’s important, but I still want to talk about politics and Lois McMaster Bujold and Supernatural, I’m still going to write every day for preference, and I’m still going to binge watch TV series and blog about it – but I’ll also read my son Owl Babies and Dinosaur Zoom! and help him play Lego. It’s a brave new world.



3. What are you working on right now?

Apart from various novel and short story projects, fanfiction! It’s actually been really freeing, and I’m loving the hell out of it: it’s nice to just write something for its own sake, because it’s fun, without constantly thinking about whether you can sell it, and if that happens to push you into writing things you wouldn’t otherwise, so much the better.

4. What Australian books or stories have you loved recently?

Earlier in the year, I reread the Pagan books by Catherine Jinks, which is still one of my favourite series of all time. I also really enjoyed These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, and Trudi Canavan’s latest book, Thief’s Magic.

5. The publishing industry has changed a lot in recent years, and continues to shift rapidly under our feet – do you feel the pressure to adapt to survive? What do you see yourself doing differently in the future?

While I can imagine feeling pressured in a few years if I’m not where I feel I should be, right now, I’m just savouring being able to write again, getting my feet back under me and having a great time. The industry is shifting, yes, but why adapt to something that hasn’t finished changing yet? If the ground is still shaking, you don’t treat that as the new normal: you ride out the shockwaves and see where you end up – and as long as that’s still a place where I get to write, I’ll be happy.

This interview was conducted as part of the 2014 Snapshot of Australian Speculative Fiction. We’ll be blogging interviews from 28 July to 10 August and archiving them at SF Signal. You can read interviews at:

Tsana Dolichva

Nick Evans

Stephanie Gunn

Kathryn Linge

Elanor Matton-Johnson

David McDonald

Helen Merrick

Jason Nahrung

Ben Payne

Alex Pierce

Tansy Rayner Roberts

Helen Stubbs

Katharine Stubbs

Tehani Wessely

Sean Wright

Mickey Mouse the Musketeer (2004)

Words fail.

Or at least, they might if I wasn’t me. Because I can always find the words.

I didn’t have high expectations of this one, because – well, it’s Mickey Mouse. Come on! But for a Musketeer movie, even one aimed at children, there was so little actual Musketeerness in it that I did rather feel like I was wasting my time.

It didn’t help that thanks to a dodgy library DVD copy, I missed the first two minutes of the movie which explains the connection between the real Three Musketeers and the actual protagonists of the movie (assuming that the flat dog versions of the characters who rescue our orphan heroes in the comic book style opening sequence are Athos, Porthos and Aramis – Wikipedia says so, but there’s no narrative evidence of this). This is a bit like watching Life of Brian without that scene at the beginning that points out he is definitely not Jesus.

It also meant that we spent a lot of the movie trying to figure out which of the original Musketeers mapped onto Mickey, Donald or Goofy, when in fact we’re not supposed to think that at all. (Though I maintain that Pluto is D’Artagnan, while Raeli argued on the grounds that Daisy Duck is obviously meant to be Constance, so surely Donald is D’Artagnan, and I’m pretty sure the Mickey-Minnie romance means he is Aramis and oh my head HURTS)

The story is as follows: Mickey, Donald and Goofy are three orphans living “in the gutter” on the streets of Paris. They are randomly attacked by “bad guys” (the Beagle Boys), and rescued by three heroic Musketeers, one of whom gives little Mickey his hat. Our three grow up longing to be real Musketeers, but can never catch a break. Instead, they work in the laundry, washing hundreds of Musketeer tabards.

The Musketeer tabards are my favourite thing about this movie. That, and the occasional beautifully rendered piece of Paris geography. And almost nothing else.

Princess Minnie Mouse (who rules France but is not allowed to be a queen, because reasons?) refuses to marry until she finds her true love, claiming she will just know who he is when she sees him. Her pleasingly sarcastic lady-in-waiting Daisy Duck points out that this fella had better be royal when he turns up finally, because ACTUAL REASONS.

Daisy Duck is the best character in this movie, and damn well knows it.

Captain Pete, boss of the Musketeers, is the villain, with plans to kill Minnie and take France for himself. Considering that their current ruler is ignoring her duty to produce an heir, I don’t entirely blame him. But that makes him an unholy concoction of the Cardinal and Treville, then? After his first assassination attempt (a falling safe) goes awry, Princess Minnie demands bodyguards. Which is the job of the Musketeers.

Not wanting any of his Musketeers and their actual competence to get in the way of future assassination attempts, Pete pulls Mickey, Donald and Goofy out of the laundry room and pretends hefinally believes they are worthy of the uniform.

Cue Mickey and Minnie’s eyes meeting across a throne room, little hearts springing into the air, and my eyes glazing over. It’s a good thing that in the Magic Kingdom, you can spot your soulmate based on them being the only creature who looks just like you, isn’t it?

Though as Daisy notes in a wry aside, eyeing Donald, not such great news for her.

Seriously, get Daisy Duck her own movie, stat.

The plot is chaotic, and the songs are awful. All of the songs. Except the ones not written for this movie – the actual score is fine, and the use of the Pirates of Penzance as the ‘opera’ in which the final act takes place is pretty amusing. But the original songs are dire. Someone should turn ‘Troubadour’ the turtle into soup.

I am blocking out everything involving Clarabelle the Cow who I think is supposed to be a version of Milady (OW MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT GO AWAY) because honestly, it is one of the most awful things Disney have ever done to me. Ever. EVERRRRRR.

A few of the fencing sequences are slightly cute, harking back to Errol Flynn in Robin Hood and the like, and I laughed out loud with genuine appreciation at the moment when the entire guard of the Musketeers forms into the shape of a fleur-de-lis but honestly, once Daisy Duck succumbs to the dubious charms of Donald, I’m out of here.

Redeeming factor: afterwards, my nearly-5 year old Jemima took up a surprisingly excellent fencing stance and started practicing lunges and footwork. “When I am a big girl I will learn to fence like my sister!” Why is it that my darling girls find their inspiration in the least awesome Musketeer movies?

Bring back the airships, all is forgiven.

This Musketeer Media Monday post is brought to you by the paid sponsors of Musketeer Space, all 50+ of them. You guys rule! Previous posts in this series include:

Musketeers in an Exciting Adventure With Airships (2011)

Musketeers Are All For Love (1993)

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

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

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