Musketeer Space

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Athos exchanged a glance with Ro. If ever Dana had been wary of those two teaming up, now she had all senses on high alert. “What aren’t you telling us?” she demanded.

  “It’s a dirtsider thing,” said Ro with a smirk. “Don’t worry, it won’t kill you.”

  Conrad stood out on the stone wall, watching the horizon and letting his breath turn to steam. Sister Snow spent a lot of time up here, he had noticed. She was polite to the nuns, but her preference was for silence and stillness away from their friendly buzz.

  He was out here because if he had to listen to a nun analyse his fleur-de-lis team history one more time, he might punch one of them.

  “Everyone has been so kind,” said Sister Snow. She was dressed in robes lent to her by the nuns of the Convent of the Carmellites – thick white wool, trimmed in bands of striking red that reflected the dark tattoos still visible at her wrists and throat. Her wounds had mostly been healed via medipatch with only a few spidery scars remaining that would disappear after another treatment or two.

  “They do their best,” said Conrad. “This is a good place to gather yourself, before the next thing comes along.”

  She turned a smile on him that was surprisingly cheerful, white teeth gleaming. “What’s the next thing for you, Conrad Su? Where are you going, when you have gathered yourself?”

  “I haven’t decided,” he said, which was all kinds of lie. He wasn’t going to tell a nun that he was running straight back to Paris as soon as it was safe, into the arms of a brave and funny Musketeer instead of his wife.

  He wanted Dana D’Artagnan. He wanted his job back, too. His life. He wanted to be back at Alek’s side, designing new outfits to conceal the growing pod babies that the wretched Prince had slung inside his shirt.

  Conrad wanted to stop feeling bad about Buck, who had been good to him, but whose death made protecting Alek a hell of a lot easier. Wow, yeah, there was the guilt stab, right in the stomach and completely on schedule.

  He wanted Lunar Palais and fleur-de-lis and Dana and a chance to breathe air that wasn’t made by goddamn trees.

  So many things he wanted, but he would settle for one right now.

  “I’m ready to go home,” he told Sister Snow. What did she care about the details, anyway? “It’s not safe yet. My girl will let me know when the coast is clear.”

  “Oh,” said Sister Snow, with an odd sort of smile. It felt as if he had met her before, though Conrad could not place her, for the life of him. “You have a girl?”

  “That is a trick question,” he said, pointing a finger at her, half-accusing. “You want me to spill my story.”

  She gave him a merry expression. “What else is there to do around here?”

  “My story is long and complex and I’m pretty sure I can’t tell it sober.”

  Sister Snow arched an eyebrow at him. “Luckily for you, the sisters left a flask of wine in my room.”

  “I do love nuns,” Conrad said fondly. “There should be a nun appreciation day.”

  “On behalf of nuns everywhere,” said Sister Snow. “I salute you.”

  “Horses,” moaned Porthos. “It had to be horses.”

  “It’s horses or mecha,” insisted Athos. You had to know him very well to spot the amusement behind his flat expression. “Only way to cover the distance to Brabazon.”

  “Horses,” Aramis said quickly. “Seriously. I know we made fun of you, Dana, when you were training for Essart’s squad, but Porthos would destroy the world if she ever tapped into a mecha suit.”

  “Mecha for me,” said Dana. “Oh God, mecha. Please.” The thought of it – of riding a live creature that rolled and breathed under her – made her feel physically sick.

  “I’ll go with her,” said Rosnay Cho. “We’ll make better time than the three of you on horseback, and take one skimmer from Brabazon. The rest of you collect the other.”

  The Sabres had stayed behind with the rest of the ships and the Countess of Clarick – it was clear that Ro wanted to be rid of them as much as the Musketeers did, though Dana hadn’t thought too closely about what that might mean.

  Athos frowned. “I don’t like it. We shouldn’t split up.”

  Dana gave him an impatient look. “We can’t delay further. Milord will not hesitate to kill Conrad if he gets near him. Ro and I will go ahead.”

  “Meanwhile, we get to watch Athos demonstrate his superiority with land-based mammals,” Porthos groaned. “Wonderful.”

  “It’s not my fault you were born on an ocean world,” Athos said smugly.

  “Just you wait until the safety of the Solar System hinges on my dolphin-training skills!”

  The mecha that Ro and Dana hired from Portside were different to the suits that Dana had grown familiar with on Lunar Palais. They were designed for harsh winter conditions, converting from the usual humanoid form to some kind of snow bike setting with large wheels, a heavy tread, and hover mode.

  There was a setting labelled ‘blizzard’ which Dana hoped she never had to use.

  With the map programmed in, she and Ro made good time across the icy plains until the statuesque city of Brabazon came into sight. It was like something off an old-fashioned Joyeux card, with intricate gabled roofs that might have been constructed from gingerbread.

  Dana barely even glanced at the city’s adorableness as they shifted their bikes back to humanoid setting and headed up the street towards the skimmer dealership. “Do you think we made good time?” she asked Ro over the comms.

  “Hard to tell,” Ro buzzed back. “We don’t know how much of a lead Milord has on us.”

  Enough, Dana thought darkly.

  The wine wasn’t anything special – not like the vintages that Conrad had been spoiled with during his time as the Prince Consort’s companion. It did the job to loosen his tongue as he told Sister Snow a censored but amusing version of his love affair with Dana D’Artagnan, his various kidnaps, and his most recent flight across the snowy northern wastes of Castellion to reach the most inappropriate safe house Chevreuse (or as he renamed her for the story, ‘Sheba’) had ever provided for him.

  “I’m not convinced it’s not a practical joke,” he admitted. “Was always a bit of a prankster, my mate Sheb. Star nuns with a sports fetish – can’t be a coincidence.”

  “At least you’re safe,” said Sister Snow. She had been watching him carefully since he first started drinking the wine – barely blinking, in fact.

  Conrad remembered the last time someone had watched him like that, and it wasn’t a good memory.

  “Huh,” he said, and set the glass down. “Are you waiting for something?”

  Sister Snow’s eyes widened and she started blinking again, like a normal human being. “I don’t know what you mean, dear.”

  “It’s just – it’s kind of obvious now,” he said. “That you spiked my drink. I’m assuming not poison, since we drank the same wine. Or you could have taken the antidote already, hadn’t thought of that.”

  Sister Snow tensed. Only slightly, but the shift of body language was enough.

  “Yeah,” said Conrad with a small nod. “Thought so. Could look like anyone, they told me. Might have been less obvious if you hadn’t borrowed half my girlfriend’s features.”

  Now that he was looking for it, he could see how much of Sister Snow’s face and body type had been inspired by Dana – not the height, that was Buck if anything, but the shape of the shoulders, the ears, the eyes, damn it. No wonder she had seemed so familiar, no wonder he had felt like he could talk to her.

  There was a confidence in her – his – her face, a calmness. Conrad had hit the nail on the head. Sister Milord Snow was waiting for something to kick off. Something that was in the drink.

  “Thing is,” Conrad went on. “I know you only kidnapped me the once, and you weren’t after any information, but you worked with the Cardinal’s people for years. Do none of you talk to each other? Special Agent Cho figured out in the first five minutes that psych drugs
don’t work on me. Genetic incompatibility. Luck of the draw. Doesn’t matter what kind of braindrain drugs you made me ingest – they won’t take.”

  Sister Snow’s gaze flicked to the half glass of wine that remained, and then back to Conrad’s face. She smiled, and it wasn’t the wry smile of a fellow traveller any more. It wasn’t human.

  Not for nothing was Conrad a member of the only fleur-de-lis team of all time to have an unbeatable season. He leaped to his feet and hurled himself backwards as Sister Snow – Milord – made her move. Even in stupid planetary gravity, he was more than capable of a quick handspring to the window ledge, where he kicked out the glass – real glass – and watched it shatter across the winding snow-packed staircase that wound around the outside of the convent.

  Milord lunged for Conrad, who launched himself out into mid-air and landed hard with a skid on the landing below. He rushed down the steps even as the freezing northern wind tore through his clothes.

  Where to go? This was the safe house, so where to go next? He wasn’t even sure where the star nuns had docked his skimmed. Sister Snow herself had arrived via skimmer, but hers had crashed, hadn’t it? Or did she fake that?

  Conrad saw a shape in the hazy distance of the mountaints, cutting through the grey white of the endless winter sky. It looked like a ship. A rescue party, or more of Milord’s traitorous aliens?

  Something – someone – slammed into him from behind. Conrad turned as he fell, soaring into the air for a breathless moment before he hit the steps hard, his head cracking with a fierce pain on the landing.

  As his vision swam, he saw the white and red blur of a nun and wondered if he was doomed, or saved. “Don’t hurt the rest of them,” he slurred. “They didn’t do anything… soup and porridge. Good nuns.”

  The nun leaned over him and yanked the scarf back from his head. It was doom after all. Sister Snow nudged him with her foot, looking satisfied. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t put psych drugs in the wine. I was waiting for the wine to run out, so you would reach for the flask of water.”

  Wetness fell out of nowhere, a steady flow from a flask on to Conrad’s face. He screwed up his eyes and mouth, trying not to breathe, but it stung his skin and he spluttered it through his nose before his traitorous mouth coughed open to take a splash of water inside.

  “Just a drop,” said Milord de Winter. “That’s all I need.”

  “This is depressing,” said Ro, surveying the grey buildings settled into the mountainside, layered in white snow. “There should be more safe houses on beaches and tropical islands.”

  “I’ll make a note of that in the report,” Dana sighed, tapping her foot impatiently as they waited on the top step of the convent.

  The deep, resounding tone of the bell still vibrated against the walls, but it was a while before they heard footsteps and a tiny, elderly nun pushed open the massive doors to let them in.

  “More guests,” she said, looking pleased. “I’m Sister Ursa. Welcome to the Sharing Hall. I don’t suppose you are famous fleur-de-lis players too? We’re hoping to get a team together later for an exhibition game.”

  “I’m the Musketeer D’Artagnan,” said Dana as the door closed behind them. Ro started stripping off her heated gloves and snow-damp outer layers, but Dana didn’t want to waste time. “This is Special Agent Cho. We need to see Conrad.” No point in wasting her time asking for his pseudonym if the nuns were Emerald Knights fans.

  Before Sister Ursa could answer, a great clanging alarm shook the walls.

  “Sisters!” yelled another nun from the courtyard beyond the Sharing Hall. “We are under attack!”

  Dana ran.

  She found herself skidding and sliding across a frosted courtyard and up a stone staircase towards a nun with cinquefoil-standard biceps beneath her robes. The nun had the unconscious figure of Conrad Su draped in her mighty arms.

  “Sister Volantis, what is going on?” cried Sister Ursa as more and more nuns gathered in the courtyard.

  Dana’s own feet stopped moving as she stared at the figure of Conrad, unsure if he was even breathing.

  “Sister Snow did this,” said Sister Volantis grimly. “Who are these strangers?”

  “We’re his friends,” Dana said helplessly. “Is he –”

  “Hurt,” Volantis snapped, and pushed past everyone to sweep Conrad into the Sharing Hall, laying him flat on the enormous table. “Send for Sister Gemini! We need medic intervention now – head wound.”

  Yes, there was blood smeared on the table, Dana realised, and in Conrad’s blue-tipped hair. As the nuns scattered to arrange medical attention, she stepped closer and laid her fingers over his hand. It was cold, but from the snowy air, she was certain, not a lack of pulse.

  “Conrad,” she whispered.

  His eyes fluttered open and fixed upon her. “Here’s trouble.”

  “Hey,” Dana said with a soft smile. “Heard you got taken down by a nun.”

  “Don’t laugh. The nuns around here are mighty and glorious.” His eyes glazed over, losing focus. “He’s a star nun now. Looks a bit like you.”

  “Milord,” Dana breathed. “It’s okay, we’ve got you now.”

  “How long ago?” Rosnay Cho broke in. “How far could he have gone?”

  Conrad looked confused.

  “Head injury, dear,” Sister Ursa reminded them gently.

  “Water,” said Conrad.

  Dana looked around. “Can we get him some water?”

  Several nuns with medipacks and other equipment, led by a uniformed medic that the others called Sister Gemini, crashed into the Sharing Hall from an inner door.

  “No,” said Conrad, his hand squeezing Dana’s finger with surprising strength. “It was in the water. Sorry about – our timing’s terrible.”

  “What was –” and the words caught in her throat as she saw him shudder on the table, his hand falling from hers. “No. Help him!”

  The nuns with medical training closed in and around Conrad. Dana stared wildly, wishing that Aramis were here, that any of her Musketeers were here. Last they had checked in with each other, the three of them were in the second skimmer, two hours behind Dana and Ro.

  “Poison,” said one of the nuns, checking the readings on her medipatch. “It’s – damaging his blood vessels faster than the tech can repair him.”

  “But it’s not,” said Dana. “He can’t –”

  Conrad’s body shuddered again, and the medipatches beeped furiously.

  “Heart’s stopped,” said Sister Gemini, sounding grim. “I can’t – what kind of poison is this?”

  Rosnay Cho breathed out. It could have been any other breath, but Dana was on high alert for anything, any sign. She turned to the other woman in desperation. “What is it? What do you know?”

  “This sounds like the illness that Milady Delia de Winter suffered from before she died,” said Ro. She moved a hand as if she was going to touch Dana in some comforting way, but stopped before she made contact. “As a point of interest.”

  “I see,” said Dana.

  The nuns continued to work on Conrad, attempting to get his heart started again. Dana turned around and walked back out of the warm convent, into the snow.

  58

  Cold Hands, Red Cloak

  Dana stayed on the snowy landing until warm hands came to take her away. An arm wrapped around her and led her into the echoing meeting hall.

  It wasn’t until she was inside, breathing air that didn’t hurt her lungs, that she realised it was Aramis who had hold of her.

  “When did you get here?” she whispered.

  “Just arrived,” said Aramis, squeezing her close. “Damn it, Dana, you’d been out there for hours. Didn’t the nuns try to move you?”

  “They may have said some things. Didn’t sink in at the time.”

  She remembered the old one, Sister Ursa, telling her that Conrad was dead, and things got rather hazy after that.

  Something clicked inside Dana as she saw Por
thos and Athos, still wearing their thick winter gear, talking to several concerned looking nuns. Someone was missing.

  “Where’s Ro?” she asked aloud.

  “Your guess is as good as ours,” Aramis said. “She was long gone when we arrived.”

  Dana huffed at that. Her lungs felt raw and painful as she warmed up. “She went after him,” she guessed.

  “Entirely possible.”

  Across the room, Athos met Dana’s gaze and then looked away. It was Porthos who came over and held Dana’s hand while she broke the news to her. “There’s surveillance footage,” she said. “Turns out these nuns are about as committed to security as they are to fleur-de-lis.”

  “Lot of good it did Conrad,” Dana said bitterly. “They let Milord waltz right in here because he looked like one of them.”

  Porthos looked sick. “Athos is checking the footage personally now,” she said. “But it looks very much like Special Agent Cho met up with Milord between your arrival and ours. They left together.”

  Oh. So that was a thing that had happened.

  Dana didn’t cry. Not even when Athos showed her the footage that proved that ten minutes after Conrad Su officially died, Rosnay Cho was halfway down the fucking mountain, in conversation with a figure that the other nuns identified as Sister Snow, a recent addition to their community.

  A murderer.

  The two of them left together after what looked like an extremely amiable seven minute conversation which did not involve anyone arresting anyone else.

  Dana did not cry, but she did get angry. So angry that her friends had to hold her down, pin her to the wall so she didn’t rampage through the convent that had failed so badly to be a safe house.

  At one point, she came back to herself and realised that she was standing in that damned snowy courtyard again. Athos had been patiently letting her hit him for… a while.

  “Sorry,” she muttered and wiped her mouth. Her knuckles ached with bruises and cold.

  Athos gave her a thin smile. “Could be worse. You could be grieving on a mountain top, so fucked up that you think joining the Musketeers is a good idea. Oh, wait.”