Musketeer Space

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

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

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

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

  Dana had fairly limited experience with sleeping with men or women who were contracted elsewhere – and she refused to connect Aramis’ current misery to the flirtation she had going with Conrad Su. She patted her friend’s back and gave her a proper hug, glad that her crush on Aramis had long disappeared into platonic friendship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Athos’ eyebrows looked at least twice as skeptical as the rest of him, and that was saying something. “To take the waters at Truth? A holiday spa on one of the Daughters of Peace? D’Artagnan, I didn’t know you cared so much about my aches and pains.”

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

  Porthos burst into the apartment, not bothering to hide the fact that the entry code to the door had not even slowed her down. “Leave!” she exclaimed. “Since when do we get personal leave without asking for it? Is Treville cracking up at last? Is someone trying to get us out of the way?” She gave Aramis a very pointed look. “Someone hasn’t been shagging pretty politicians again, have they?”

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

  Porthos turned to Dana, who tried not to look guilty. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  “Secret mission for the Crown,” Dana admitted.

  “And does this have anything to do with -”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “I don’t have a dart,” Dana pointed out.

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

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

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

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

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

  “I thought the Calais,” said Dana.

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

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

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

  All three of them blinked at her.

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

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

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

  “Later,” said Dana. “The Calais leaves in two hours. I already booked our tickets.”

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

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

  Three days there, 24 hours planetside to find the Duchess of Buckingham and reclaim the diamond studs, and three days back. Grimaud was parked in freight guarding Athos’ disguised Parry-Riposte, while Bazin and Bonnie crewed Aramis’ disguised Morningstar, which would discreetly follow the solarcrawler and allow them to scan for any other ships which might be following. Porthos’ Hoyden remained in Paris, to make it less obvious that the three Musketeers known as the ‘inseparables’ had bugged out at the same time. Planchet had reluctantly agreed to stay out of this particular adventure, as someone had to keep Madame Su from suspecting that Dana had gone anywhere.

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

  Dana, standing on the crowded platform near the airlock, had not yet received the letter from the Prince Consort. They were running out of time.

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

  Dana stood there, surrounded by travellers and their friends and families, and so much kissing. Her thoughts were full
of Rosnay Cho, and she jumped every time she spotted a colour that seemed deeply inappropriate for a flight suit. The Cardinal would certainly send her special agent after them, if she knew that this mission was taking place.

  The Cardinal, Dana was starting to learn, knew bloody everything.

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

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

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

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

  “I have to go,” said Dana.

  “Obviously,” Conrad said, ducking his head slightly as he smiled at her. He almost looked shy for a moment. Another reason to find him attractive, as if she needed it. “Good luck,” he offered.

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

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

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

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

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

  “Psych too.”

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

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

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

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

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

  She was grateful to them, full stop.

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

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

  “Promises, promises,” replied Athos.

  19

  How they Lost Porthos and Aramis

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

  They were dressed as civilians. For Athos, this meant a grey flight suit and matching jacket. Aramis joked that if you cut off Athos’ arm, you would find blue blood dotted with the fleur-de-lis in his veins, so the lack of uniform was fooling no one. At least his new jacket was long enough for him to carry his pilot’s slice concealed.

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

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

  Athos had threatened to set fire to her suitcase.

  Aramis wore a dark green flight suit, gathering her hair at the nape of her neck instead of the usual tight topknot. “If I have to fly in a hurry, I’ll probably strangle myself,” she noted. “But at least it looks casual.”

  The first day on the Calais solarcrawler consisted of card games, nervous tension, and Aramis and Porthos telling loud, scandalous stories about each other’s sex lives, which had the bonus effect of scaring away the travellers who attempted to share their carriage.

  It allowed them to spread out more, so that Athos could sulk quietly on the far side of the aisle from his more raucous friends. Aramis sometimes joined him, reading poetry to herself and sighing loudly about the desertion of Tracy Dubois.

  Dana spent her time stalking the Duchess of Buckingham via Planchet’s very convenient app. At least this meant she grew annoyed at the dissolute lifestyle and irritating public habits of someone other than her three friends.

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

  It was third shift of the second day, and the train lights were low. Dana slept for a few hours, to the soothing sound of Aramis and Porthos muttering at each other beneath her bunk. Athos, in the bunk on the far side of the carriage, had been lying still for a long time.

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

  “Londres,” said Aramis.

  “Ngyeng,” said Porthos.

  “Petronova.”

  “Dee.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Smartarse,” said Porthos. There was a long pause. “It’s is a tie. Inconceivable. I know Aramis is more of a tart than I am.”

  “My affairs are sequential rather than simultaneous,” Aramis said, sounding smug.

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

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

  He huffed quietly at the ceiling and said nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Dana grinned at the ceiling, thinking of the beautiful Conrad Su. “No promises.”

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

  “How long?” asked Athos, rolling out of the other bunk and landing lightly on his feet.

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

  “There are three points on the route where the Calais crosses Church Space,” said Aramis, helping Dana down from her own bunk. “If they’re going to jump us, it’s going to be in one of those windows of opportunity. The first one is due in about twenty minutes. But it’s a short run. They’d have to be confident they could arrest and have us packed away in under an hour. The second window is next shift and much longer. That’s the one they’re most likely to take.”