Musketeer Space

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  The Church’s tenets had kept humanity together as functioning society when the stresses of colonising space was on the verge of destroying everything about who they were as people. Morality, faith and the sanctity of contracts were the prime fuel of space-dwelling humanity.

  It was important enough to the Regence’s reign that her government might well fracture under the weight of a broken marriage contract. If darling Conrad had evidence that his master was playing away from home, this was political dynamite.

  “Go on,” Dana whispered. Once she knew, she could never unknow it.

  “It was that game started it all,” Madame Su said angrily. “Last Joyeux, when the Duchess of Buckingham joined their team. It happened that night, whatever it is. I don’t want to know!”

  Dana frowned. “Buckingham, the Ambassador of Valour? I saw her on the newscast, cutting a ribbon on her tour of Honour.”

  “Humph. Buckingham,” Madame Su said, smacking her cup down on the table and pouring more tea. “Conrad thinks there is a trap to lure her here, to catch her in a compromising position with the Prince Consort.”

  Dana was suspicious now. “But if they have been warned, what’s the problem? The Prince can simply stay away from her.”

  “Last time I saw my darling Conrad, that was his plan,” Madame Su agreed, though her voice suggested she was close to breaking down again. It wobbled. “But now he is missing, and no one at the Palace will speak to me of him. I questioned the others he works with, and they said he was last seen in the company of a terrible person, a woman who is not to be trusted.”

  Dana sighed. It sounded like something straight out of Love and Asteroids. “Well, that’s a start. Do you know who she is?”

  Madame Su took a deep breath and lifted her chin. There was something quite stately and dignified about her. “Her name is Rosnay Cho,” she said firmly. “She works as a special agent of the Cardinal, though she has no proper rank in the Church and I am certain she is a wickedly sinful woman.”

  “They usually are,” Dana said lightly. “What else do you know about her?”

  “Long hair, though she claims to be a pilot half the time. And she has a scar.” Madame Su drew the pattern across her face, and Dana felt herself holding a breath she scarcely remembered taking in.

  “Does she fly a brand new Moth fighter?” she asked.

  Madame Su closed her eyes and nodded quickly. “I see her when I go to the auction houses and the promenade,” she said. “Watching me. I’ve no way to get a secret message to the Prince Consort about Conrad, not without her catching me. Could you do it for me?”

  Rosnay Cho. Dana couldn’t believe it. That Moth pilot from Meung, the one called “Ro” – it had to be her. Dana shivered, remembering the spaceships flying back and forth in the air between them during the duel, and that burst of pain…

  “I’m going to get a message to the Prince, and I’m sure he’ll help find your Conrad and bring him home,” she promised Madame Su, patting her hand as comfortingly as she could. She was getting better at that.

  If Dana had learned one thing since she left home for Paris Satellite and the Musketeers, it was that Ro was her enemy. If she was the enemy of the Crown as well, then it was Dana’s duty to get in her face and, with any luck, punch her in it.

  Duty, in this case, would also be pleasure.

  10

  The Weight of the Solar System

  Dana’s head was full of turmoil as she left Madame Su. A royal scandal was the last thing she wanted to get mixed up in! But if this was a chance to get one over on Rosnay bloody Cho, it was worth the risk.

  She wanted to ask the advice of Athos and the others. Surely they knew more about securing a royal audience than Dana did. But all three of them were flying border patrol today, and this wasn’t the sort of conversation to have over comms.

  No, Dana was going to have to handle this herself. It would make a good story when she joined her friends for supper later.

  The only good part about this affair was the ship. Madame Su had a decade-old scout venturer stored in the civilian dock, and was happy for Dana to fly it down to Luna Palais rather than cadging a lift on official transport. The thought of having a helm wrapped around her skull again was enough to make Dana sing and dance. She missed having her own ship so badly that it hurt.

  If only she had hung on to poor old Buttercup.

  Dana made her way through rows and rows of ships on E Dock, searching for the code that matched the keypass Madame Su had given her. It wasn’t here – she was too far along, and would have to go back a block or two.

  As she spun around, she saw a ship that she recognised.

  No. It couldn’t be that – there were plenty of Moth fighters, even those of the very latest generation. The fact that it looked exactly like the Moth that Dana had docked next to on Meung Station meant nothing.

  Only…

  The closer she got, the more she felt certain that it was the same ship.

  Dana heard voices, and backed up into the shadow of a tricked out vintage Sabre with flames painted across its hull.

  There was Rosnay Cho. The pilot with the long black hair stepped out from the Moth, speaking into a clamshell tablet that was the same colour as her rose-coloured flight suit. “Don’t speak to me like that,” she said furiously. “Of course he’s fucking secure. You’re the one playing mind games. Are the friends going to prevent our target getting to the moon or not?”

  Dana heard another voice, low and male and melodic, coming out of the clamshell. “With friends like these… who needs enemies?”

  “That’s not an answer, Milord.” Never had a formal title been spoken with such heavy sarcasm.

  “You put your pieces in place, sweetness, and I’ll worry about mine.”

  Rosnay snapped the clamshell closed, gave a short scream of frustration, and then strode away from her Moth, heading for the sphere-lifts. She made another call before she got there, this time through a comm stud in her wrist. “Foy. Check in with me in three hours on the Stellar Concourse. I don’t fucking care what I said about your rec-hours. Right.”

  The sphere-lift hissed open and swallowed her up.

  Dana breathed in and out. She had no idea what any of that meant. Milord. Was that the same Milord she had seen with Ro on Meung Station, the pretty man who looked too posh to be in a dive like that? They were in this together, whatever it was.

  Her eyes turned back to the beautiful, gleaming Moth. Was Madame Su’s abducted husband right here under her nose? Dana didn’t dare try to break in. Who knew what kind of security layers were built into a ship like that?

  Planchet might know a trick or two. The kid was handy with electronics.

  First things first. Dana had promised Madame Su she would fly to Paris and get a message directly to the Prince Consort. She had time to check on the ship before she made a decision about the Moth. Dana tracked back along the dock until she found the right row for the Su scout venturer.

  As she approached the right zone, Dana felt her senses prickle. She leaned casually into a recharging station as if checking the instructions, and glanced around. No one in sight. And yet…

  She could see the Su scout, squat and greenish-grey on its dock platform. There, caught in the glare of the flat lighting in this area, she saw two shadows beneath it that were shaped like people.

  Not just people, by their stance. Red Hammers, perhaps? Or Ro’s less official allies? There was a military feel about them.

  The Su family had certainly got the attention of the wrong people.

  Dana backed the hell up. She kept walking until she was at the sphere-lifts, and then let them suck her away from the civilian dock. She didn’t breathe properly until she was back in one of the shopping plazas, surrounded by people.

  How the hell could she get off Paris Satellite discreetly? She didn’t have a ferry shift until tomorrow.

  Her brand new comm stud, the one she had been issued along with her mecha when she signed the c
ontract with Commandant Essart, chimed suddenly with an unfamiliar code. Dana stopped at the nearest set of privacy booths and slipped into a soundproof cubicle before accepting the call. “Hello?”

  Planchet’s face, all worry and freckles, appeared in the air before her. “Are you alone?” she hissed.

  “Yes, what’s all this about?” Dana remembered the scout. “You have to tell Madame Su -”

  “She’s been arrested,” said Planchet, looking like she was about to cry. “Four Red Hammers turned over her rooms. They took her away. I hid under the clothes printer, waiting for them to leave, but they didn’t! I mean, two of them left with her, but the others are still there. I don’t know what to do.”

  Dana thought with regret of her own room, which she couldn’t reach without going through Madame Su’s workshop. “Can you get out of there without them seeing you?”

  “There’s the heating ducts,” Planchet considered. “D’you think they’ll arrest me?”

  “I don’t know. Better not find out. Meet me -” Dana gave Planchet the address of the apartment Athos shared with his engie Grimaud. “Wait in the bar next door if no one’s home. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hesitated. “Do you know how to bust the security of the latest generation of Moth fighter?”

  “If I downloaded the manual.” Planchet sounded delighted at the challenge. “I’ll do that before I leave.”

  “Only if you can do it silently!” Dana urged. “Don’t take any risks.”

  She made her away across town, heading for the district where Athos lived, worrying all the way. She found Planchet happily ensconced at Grimaud’s kitchen counter, eating a second helping of freshly printed pie.

  “Thanks for looking after her,” said Dana.

  Grimaud took off her headphones. “You’re looking for Conrad Su.” It was the longest sentence Dana had ever heard her say.

  Dana looked accusingly at Planchet, who shrugged with her mouth full. “She asked.”

  “Do you know Su?” Dana asked, still trying to recover from the fact that Grimaud was acknowledging her existence.

  Grimaud rolled her eyes. “Number 18,” she said. “Emerald Knights.”

  “That makes no sense at all.” No, wait. The Emerald Knights. “Are we talking about Zero G TeamJoust?” Dana said finally.

  Grimaud smiled with all her teeth. “The game we conquered space to play,” she said in a tone that bordered on the religious.

  It was near the end of the patrol shift, and Grimaud was due down on Crown Dock to meet Athos and the Parry-Riposte. Before she left, she set Dana and Planchet up with a recording of the most famous Zero G TeamJoust game of the previous year.

  Thanks to Porthos, Dana had taken an interest in TeamJoust since her arrival on Paris Satellite. She knew who most of the fleur-de-lis teams were, at least.

  Prince Alek of Auster played in the fleur-de-lis 0 League, which pushed up the Regence’s popularity ratings something shocking. Alek was fit, fashionable and fanciable. Dana had seen a few clips of his games – even in the unflattering padded armour he was an unforgettable figure with brilliant emerald eyes and matching hair.

  Right now, she took the time to observe his teammates. Conrad Su was not just the Prince’s tailor but his jousting partner. Along with a feisty female pole-defence called Laurel Slaughter who had joined the team recently, they were the Emerald Knights, one of the most popular fleur-de-lis squads in Paris.

  “Everyone knows about this game,” said Planchet. “The final match of the season, last Joyeux. Chevreuse – their previous pole-defence – she sprained her ankle, and the Prince called in a celebrity sub at the last minute. Drove the audience wild, and the bookies too.” She nodded at the screen.

  The sub was tall and statuesque, with a wide white smile and reddish brown skin that matched her long, frizz-curled hair. Even beneath the padding, you could see the muscle on her from shoulder to thigh.

  “She’d never played 0 League before, not officially, but everyone knew who she was,” said Planchet.

  Dana watched the helmeted woman as she bounced back and forth in the air before the cams, a large pole tilted in one hand. “She’s famous?” she hazarded.

  “She’s the Duchess of freaking Buckingham!” Planchet’s mouth was full of the sandwich Grimaud had made for her before she left – apparently her freckled face cried out to be fed. “Georgiana Villiers. Buck to her friends and the media feeds. Ambassador of Valour.” She nodded at the screen like a demented squirrel, still chewing. “Gossipnode exploded when it was announced. Buck’s got 11 million followers, and they were fan-tracking the game like crazy.”

  “I don’t know what most of those words mean,” said Dana. “She’s popular, then.” The Duchess of Buckingham. Madame Su had claimed she was implicated in an affair with Prince Alek.

  “Brilliant game,” said Planchet, skipping to the highlight montage. “There’s Conrad, Madame’s husband. He lives at the Palace.”

  The Emerald Knights celebrated their win with the age-old sporting traditions of bro hugs, rude gestures and the slapping of butts. Su was stocky where Prince Alek was tall, but he had the same combination of silver scales over golden skin that marked him as a native of Auster. His hair was bright blue, contrasting with the Prince’s green. He had to be at least twenty-five years younger than his wife. “Go Madame Su,” said Dana, impressed. Her taste in men was better than her taste in fashion and wall decor.

  The cam feed scanned the crowd, capturing the hubbub of the Emerald Knights supporters.

  “Slow it!” Dana said sharply.

  Planchet did so, and gave her an odd look as the audience footage crawled to a near-standstill.

  Dana had spotted her friends. The three inseparable Musketeers. She hadn’t realised any of them but Porthos cared about fleur-de-lis.

  They sat together in a tangle, right behind the players’ bench. There weren’t three of them, but four. A woman with bright purple hair, an Emerald Knights jacket and fierce green face-paint was cuddled between them, her head thrown back against Athos’ shoulder. When she saw the cam pass by, she screwed her face up and roared directly into the lens.

  Who was she?

  Dana heard a throat clearing, and looked up to see Athos in his doorway, regarding her with that flat, unblinking gaze he often used to unnerve people.

  “We’re watching a game,” she said.

  “So I see.” Athos dropped his heavy jacket at the door and headed for the kitchen corner of the apartment. “Turn it off, Grimaud.” His engie appeared behind him, mouth pressed shut. There was an angry tension between them.

  “Don’t tell her what to do,” Dana objected.

  “Turn it off!” Athos roared.

  Grimaud gave him a filthy look, and turned off the vid. She gestured for Planchet to join her, and they went into the other room.

  “Are you drunk already?” Dana demanded. “You’ve only just got off duty.”

  “Believe me, I am sober,” Athos snarled. “If you’ll excuse me, I plan to do something to rectify that.” He began searching his cupboards. “Grimaud, where’s the good whiskey?”

  Silence from the other room.

  “Conrad Su has been abducted,” Dana said quietly.

  Athos stopped for a moment. “I see. Not overly surprising.”

  “Not surprising?”

  “He’s close to the Prince Consort. Kidnapping is practically part of the job description. I’m sure he’ll be returned quickly enough.”

  “He’s been gone three days.”

  Athos located the bottle he had been looking for, wedged behind the food printer. “That is troubling,” he admitted. The anger had dissipated now.

  “His wife suspects the Cardinal is involved, through an agent called -”

  “Well, yes,” Athos said patiently. “I imagine so.”

  Dana could have hit him out of sheer frustration. She watched as he poured several measures of whiskey into two glasses, drank one, added ice to the second, and ra
pped a code into the food printer.

  “Don’t you think someone should do something?” Dana demanded eventually, while the printer hummed to life.

  Athos poured a fresh drink for himself, in the glass without ice. “This is palace politics. I have been playing this game since before you were born…”

  “You would have been ten,” she snapped.

  “I started young. You don’t want to get involved, D’Artagnan.”

  The printer chimed, and Athos removed a roast beef sandwich from it. He picked up the whiskey glass with ice and the sandwich, and went and rapped on the inner door of the apartment. Grimaud opened it after a moment, and glowered at him.

  “I am very sorry for shouting,” said Athos, sounding sincere. He gave her the peace offerings.

  Grimaud took the plate and glass and closed the door again.

  “Now, where were we?” Athos asked as he returned to Dana and more importantly, his drink.

  “You were about to explain to me what happened at a certain fleur-de-lis match last Joyeux, when the Duchess of Buckingham played on Prince Alek’s team,” said Dana.

  He gave her a dirty look. “I was not.”

  “Come on, Athos!” she exploded. “You were there. I saw you on the cam. If something happened that night, you know about it.”

  Athos sighed. “You have no idea what you are getting into here, little one.”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “It was a bad Joyeux for all of us.” He met her eyes. “Some nights are better forgotten.”

  “I agree with you,” Dana said calmly. “Right up to the point that it comes back to bite you on the arse.”

  He regarded her steadily for a moment, and then had another swallow of whiskey. “There are two different forms of TeamJoust: cinquefoil and fleur-de-lis. You know the difference?”

  “We get sports broadcasts all the way out on the rim, you know.” In truth, Dana had paid little attention to TeamJoust before Paris. She knew that cinquefoil was melée-style, five jousters per team, and it was brutal. Fleur-de-lis was three per side, played in a sequence of one-on-one until the final melee spar. It was considered the more civilised game, because fewer people got seriously damaged while playing.