“Your loyalty is to the Prince Consort?”
“To the Crown,” Dana said. She sat up, allowing Conrad to do the same. He didn’t look quite as preternaturally pretty in person as he had on the holo screen but that could be because he had been captive in a ship for a couple of days. “My loyalty is to the Crown.”
Conrad rubbed his neck, and winced. “It’ll do. I can’t go home?”
Dana shook her head. “They’re waiting at your place, to detain all visitors.” Porthos had patched the table conversation to her comm as well, which may have made her explanation to Conrad more confused than she intended, since she was listening to them at the same time. “Including me, as your wife’s lodger.”
“They don’t know about me, though!” Planchet said cheerfully. “Madame Su pays me in bed and board, and she’s always kept me off the books.”
Conrad gave the young engineer a friendly shove. “Don’t say that like it’s a good thing. My darling wife’s not taking gross advantage of you for your own protection.” He looked seriously at Dana. “Here’s the thing. Prince Alek is my employer and my teammate. I’m the closest friend he has left on Luna Palais. That means I’ve been picked up for questioning, and subjected to security checks more times than I’ve made silk coats. And trust me, I’ve made a lot of silk coats. There’s a standard routine to it - they let me go about my business after an hour or two. But this time was different.”
Dana nodded. “Is this the first time Rosnay Cho was involved?”
“The first time she’s got her hands dirty,” Conrad muttered. “Though I’m starting to think she was behind other incidents in the past. I thought she’d let me go once I convinced her there was nothing compromising I could tell them about his Highness. Luckily, Cho favours psych drugs and brain cables for interrogation…”
“You surprise me,” Dana said dryly.
“I happen to be one of the 5% of the population who can’t be influenced that way,” Conrad went on. “My brain won’t take adjusting, mechanical or chemical. One of the reasons people in power share so many bloody secrets with me. I would have waited for Cho or her employers to lose interest, but I ran out of time.” He paused, looking at Dana as if he was still wondering how much to share with her. “I have a vital appointment later today, down on the moon. That’s why I risked the melt-mine to get out. I have to reach the Prince Consort in the next couple of hours, or he is going to get himself into so much trouble. Seriously. Cities burning, solar system crumbling, shit is going down.”
Of course she was going to help. She had come this far. “You can’t go by civilian shuttle,” Dana said immediately. “Too many Church zones to cross between here and there – they’d pick you up as soon as you moved through their surveillance coverage.”
“I can take him in my dart,” Aramis said in her ear.
Dana shook her head. “You and the others have done enough, and your ships are too recognisable. No point in advertising the involvement of the Musketeers, not unless we have to.”
“Athos won’t be needing his ship for a while,” pointed out Porthos in her other ear. “Since he’s about to…”
“Shh, don’t distract her,” Aramis cut in. “You have a plan, don’t you, Dana?”
Dana found herself grinning. “Conrad has an appointment Down There, and I’m a pilot. All we need is a ship. Ideally one that we already know we can hack.”
Conrad gave her an odd look. “You want to steal Rosnay Cho’s Moth?”
Dana felt as if her insides were full of lightning. “You have no idea how much I want to steal Rosnay Cho’s Moth.”
“But I blew a hole out the back of it,” Conrad reminded her.
“I can fix it!” Planchet said excitedly. “I can!” she patted a small satchel on her belt “I’ve got my box of tricks, including sealing glass and rotor-connectors. The self-repair system on board should do the rest once I log Dana into the system.”
The sphere-lift beside them beeped suddenly, and irised open to reveal Aramis with an unconscious man at her feet. “So what you’re saying is,” she said calmly. “It’s a good thing I just gave Cho’s engie a dose of Pentasleep and stole his ID stud.” She opened her hand, revealing the small metal stud that she had removed from Foy’s wrist.
Conrad raised a hand. “Can we stuff him in the sonic shower compartment and feed him protein bars through a slot? No particular reason.”
“How much longer do you need to keep E-Dock in a security blackout?” Porthos broke in over the shared comm channel. “Because Ed is going off shift in about twenty minutes, and I owe him two steak dinners and some amazing sex.”
“Three steak dinners,” corrected Ed. “And dessert.”
“Baby, I have all sorts of ideas about dessert…”
“Twenty minutes will be fine!” said Planchet, blushing hard. “It only takes ten to backdate a flight plan into the system.”
“Interesting,” said Aramis, gesturing for Conrad to help her pick up the unconscious engie. “Dana, your talent for human resources is spot on. My own engie is far too moral to endorse a caper like this.”
Dana gave Planchet an encouraging smile. “I think we’re going to work well together,” she agreed.
12
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 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 comm. She had elected to remain in Paris. She had also slipped a pearl stunner into Dana’s pocket before letting them go. “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 comms 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. It felt warm 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 hard 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?”
“Maintenance run only, regulati
on 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, 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. It made his eyes brighter than his hair, and that was saying something. Dana found herself captivated by his 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 do you a double.”
“I’ll take it.”
Dana muted the comms 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. “Barely,” 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 tight 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, you’d 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, Dana felt the familiar leaden weight settle in her stomach. Lunar gravity was all the worse after flying a real ship.
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.
Conrad came back to Dana, 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 wildly 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 had been 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 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 records for Dana and herself on a civilian shuttle), Dana and Conrad made a speedy path across Lunar Palais to the Palace.
They caught a tram along 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 was built on the moon.
Conrad grew nervous and agitated as they neared the Louvre. He had not tried to kiss her again. Dana stuck with him, to make sure that he 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 grinned at the thought of it. She wished she could see the look on the other woman’s face, and wondered idly if Porthos’ Ed could arrange that via security cam.
“This is our stop,” said Conrad, and 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 on the East Side of the city. 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, open-air rooms within rooms, and every one of them was spectacular. Still it was a blur to Dana, moving at speed through it all. Finally, Conrad drew to a halt. “Better clear off,” he said. “You shouldn’t be seen at the Palace. If you head back to barracks now, can you 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,” Conrad 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. My Prince needs me.”
Dana was superfluous, then. “Look after yourself,” she said sternly. “You might actually need rescuing next time.”
“Let’s not pretend you didn’t rescue me,” he said, with that smile that lit up his face. “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 her arrest?
“Watch your back,” Conrad warned. “You’ve made some dangerous enemies today, whether you know it or not.”
This is what I always wanted, Dana thought in a 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 agreed, and strode away along Moonflower Walk.
No more kissing. That was probably for the best.
What followed was highly embarrassing. Dana had been so hasty in following Conrad, she failed to take note of the route they took through the private gardens of the Palace.
Either that, or the Artifice glitched and scrambled the order of the garden rooms when she wasn’t looking. Maybe this was actually a cunning security system, to dissuade thieves and assassins.
Dana 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.
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 formal coat was deep blue velvet with gold embellishments, which made him look far more like the professional courtier he was supposed to be.
Still pretty.
“Last chance to turn back from making the biggest mistake of your life,” he said clearly as he passed Dana. She thought for a moment that he was addressing her. But she heard another male voice respond to his, close by, though Conrad was alone.
“Shut up, for God’s sake,” said Conrad, sounding completely fed up. “I sacrificed sleep in my own bed for the first time in days for this, don’t forget that.”
Dana let Conrad and his invisible companion pass, then followed quietly.
She was curious about this 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, she also needed him to lead her out of this 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 inconvenient. Dana was used to a shift-based lifestyle. Space was always dark, and if you wanted day, you turned the damned light on. Being subject to the whims of planetary bodies was still not something she felt was natural, even after several weeks of work shifts on Lunar Palais.
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, walking past rec hubs and a large private dock of Royal vehicles. There were a few people working here and there, so Dana kept to the dark, shadowing Conrad. He acted as if this kind of stroll was normal for him.
Where was he going? Why hustle all the way to the Palace only to turn around and leave immediately?
Musketeer Space Page 11