Chapter 2 – It's All About the Dollars

"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted - "

It was two weeks after the birthday party. And now the birthday girl's mother, the former Miss Napolipolita and ex-Captain of Her Majesty's Egota Pallas Athena and now the Director of Strategic Development for the Napolipolita-Daitokuji Financial Group, glared down at the Director of Development. He sat at the enormous conference room table, making a cat's cradle with a piece of thread picked from the cuff of his suit pants.

All the zaibatsu directors barely hid their contempt of the new Mrs. Daitokuji, who had been busy getting blotto and crash-landing her spacecraft in the middle of Graviton Bay when they, on the other hand, had been crafting the future of the company. Of course, none of them could deny that she was responsible for the development and building of Earth's first faster-than-light ship, nicknamed the ENDY, which had made billions and had propelled the zaibatsu to international prominence.

And now it was time to update her original creation. "Our next project is the development and construction of a second-generation ENDY - " she announced.

"What does that stand for again, my dear - er, Captain?" Hikaru Daitokuji said, just wanting to hear its name once again. Of course, he had named it. The billionaire loved naming mechas. Mecha, of course, was the Japanese term used for any large machine.

The ex-Captain smiled beatifically. "Of course, My Sweet Hik- er, Mr. Daitokuji." The both of them tried to maintain a professional relationship at work, an effort more honored in the breach. "Our first light-speed vessel - designed by Yours Truly - was christened the 'Napolipolita-Daitokuji Silver Edition Classic Lotus Blossom Special, or 'ND' for short - "

"Otherwise known as the Queen Margarita - "

"No, Hik- er, Mr. Daitokuji," said his secretary, who was sitting next to him, taking notes of the meeting. The Captain shot her a withering gaze over her dark shades and snarled viciously, baring her big teeth and causing the woman to slide two inches into her chair. She gulped, but continued. "The Queen Margarita was the mecha that uh, - "

" - Destroyed the entire downtown and nearly bankrupted the Earth Defense Force," said Colonel Lawrence Yashida, giving the lavender-haired magnate a look.

Mr. Director Monty Zuma immediately broke into loud guffaws, sounding about as genuine as the toupee he wore under his service cap. "OH HO HO HO HO! It did NOT, Colonel!" He stomped the blonde young man's foot under the polished cherry wood conference table. "It - - merely set us back a few years, budget-wise."

"Like hell," Yashida thought to himself, wishing he could launch his superior officer into deep space at the end of his now-sore foot.

"Are you boys done?" the Captain sighed, running her hands through her long green locks and restoring order. "Mr. Daitokuji. Our light speed craft's nickname is Athena, don't you remember?"

Hikaru sat up in his seat, baring his teeth. "Magnolia," he stated. He certainly knew the name of the craft that made him a multi-billionaire. Unfortunately, he was wrong.

The former Captain bared her big teeth in turn. The best way to deal with excess testosterone in a board room, she had found, was to slap it down good and hard. "No, Athena."

"Magnolia."

"Athena."

"Magnolia."

"A-THEE-na, Hikaru."

"Dammit, woman! MAG-NO-LIA!"

"IT'S ATHENA, YOU KAKAMATANDIS!"

"Can't we get on with it?" growled the Director of Commerce, gripping his balding pate with both hands.

"Oh cool your jets, cutie pie," the Captain shot back. She filed away Hikaru's transgression for later, knowing well that its continued discussion was one of those things that gave their marriage real spice. "As I was saying. Our next endeavor will be the creation of a second-generation ATHENA, with improved warp drive, faster speed, greater seating capacity, and - " - she smiled beatifically - "a cockpit of my own design."

"Which means that no living human soul will be able to find the 'on' switch," the Director of Commerce whispered into the Director of Development's ear. The dark-haired man chortled, elbowing him jovially.

What's this, the Captain thought. More of that male bonding foolishness?

"Which also means I'll puke nonstop." Daitokuji murmured to his secretary. "Cygnans can pull a lot more gs than we can, I guess. Her designs could do with a bit more tinkering, if you ask me." She snickered, putting her hand over her mouth.

"What was that my dearest darling - er, Mr. Daitokuji?"

"Nothing, Dollface - er, Captain." He smiled at her, waving his hands expansively. "Do go on."

She gazed at him for a good half-minute, just to make sure he wasn't going to go Maniac on her. He did that a lot, and when he did, she dealt with it as any soldier would. Fortunately, she was unarmed at the moment. The secretary tittered. Mr. Director mopped his forehead with a large bandana, then covered his nose with it and honked loudly.

The alien sighed. "The financials are before you, in the binder. Please open to page fifty-three - "

The attendees did so. The conference room's silence was shattered within seconds.

"YOU'VE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING, CAPTAIN!" shouted the Director of Commerce, except he didn't say freaking.

"Excuse me?" replied the former Miss Napolipolita, hands on hips.

"Language!" the secretary chided.

The Captain eagerly turned on her. "A little harsh language bother you, dear? Perhaps you'd be more comfortable taking notes in the freaking hall," except she didn't say freaking.

Yashida chuckled. He didn't trust this space amazon as far as he could toss her, but she did come out with a good bon mot now and again. Hikaru's secretary - a smartly-dressed brunette named Miss Kobayashi - gasped indignantly. "Director of Commerce," Daitokuji snapped, trying to defuse the rapidly-deteriorating situation between his new wife and his long-time secretary. "What exactly is your objection?"

The man grimaced. "My objection is that this project calls for an - well, astronomical would be the best term - amount of money." The man folded his arms. "It's obscene."

Captain shot her Sweet Hikaru a look which said loudly and clearly, "Back me or else, you."

No fool, the billionaire instantly put his hand on the back of his head and nodded, while exploding with his Hikaru Daitokuji all-purpose cackle, patent pending. "Nonsense! We'll just wring it out of one of the subsidiaries. Be creative!"

The Director of Commerce jutted his jaw. "The subs need their funding, Sir, to satisfy the regulatory requirements of at least a dozen different countries in which the Daitokuji Financial Group does business. What we need is a fresh source of funds - one that isn't tied up in manufacture or operations."

"That's 'Napolipolita-Daitokuji Financial Group', Chrome-Dome,' the Captain snapped, baring her teeth once again.

"Don't annoy me with petty details, man," Hikaru said.

"I don't consider thirteen billion dollars petty, Sir," Director Chrome-Dome retorted.

"Then talk to the bankers. She needs money for this project, and she needs it fast."

"Sir," the executive pleaded. "Money's tight. The Fed Funds rate is in excess of 11.5%. Borrowing would drastically increase our costs."

"Cram the Fed Funds rate!" the former Miss Napolipolita shrieked, shaking her fist at him.

Daitokuji steepled his fingers in front of him and leaned back in his chair. It took a great deal of energy for him to appear diplomatic. "Listen to me once again. I pay you to be the Director of Commerce. So - Direct - the - freaking - Commerce." And he said "freaking", too.

"Very well, then, Mr. Daitokuji," the bald man said peevishly, but with just a touch of pleasure. "Have it your way. But bear in mind that the only person within the holding company who holds sufficient funds for this project is - " Everyone listened breathlessly. " - your mother."

Everyone facefaulted.

Hikaru shrieked, grabbing his hair in his hands and jumping to his feet. "That's impossible!"

Captain gave a barely-audible "Eeep!"

Miss Kobayashi tittered behind her hand.

The military guys gave each other a sidelong glance, suppressing their smiles.

The Director of Development gave his compatriot the "thumbs-up" sign.

Everyone in the room already knew that the eighty-year-old family dowager, Mitsuko Daitokuji, hadn't spoken to her only son since he had allied himself with that "cheap puke-green drunkard," as she had so eloquently put it.

Sweat flew from the billionaire's brow. "Figure out an alternative. I want this project funded and I want it funded without an excess of bullhockey," except he didn't say hockey. Miss Kobayashi winced; the ex-Captain laughed, wiggling her fingers at her. "Do you understand me?" Daitokuji sat back in his seat, still staring the man down.

The alien, still standing at the head of the conference table, sighed deeply and gazed at him with puppy-dog eyes. It did her no good, however, since only Superman could see her eyes through those radiation-and-bullet-proof Leptonian sunglasses.

"There is no alternative, Sir," the businessman said. "She owns a sufficient block of stock to - well, virtually control all sources of funding for a project this size."

"In other words, Mr. Daitokuji Sir," Colonel Yashida said forthrightly. "In order to get this ship built, you need to - ask your mama."

Hikaru's jaw dropped. Captain curled her hands into claws and menaced Yashida's side of the table, causing Mr. Director Zuma to crawl under the table, quivering. Miss Kobayashi, however, had been sufficiently vexed by the Captain's conduct that she thought she might as well take her shot and accept the consequences. "And that wouldn't even be a problem," she said archly, "if it wasn't for that bull dyke in a business suit at the head of the table."

Napolipolita shrieked a terrifying whoop of outrage, and launched herself across the conference table. She seized the hapless woman's throat with both hands and began to shake her head back and forth like a rag doll's. They both crashed to the floor.

The other attendees jumped up to watch the melee, as if the combatants were cats in a sack. And - like cats - since neither was armed, the weapons of choice were teeth and claws (well, the Captain had claws, at any rate - long, sculpted, and emerald green-lacquered, with the late great Spaceship Hotel airbrushed on each).

God, I love to watch women fight, Hikaru thought but prudently did not say.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Where'd you get the shiner, Ma?" asked Atina.

"Remember your father's secretary, dear?" She stood in the center of the spacious Mansion living room, holding a 12-ounce filet mignon over her right eye.

"Oh, Ma. You didn't."

"Oh, I did. The cow called me a bad name. And now she's cooling her heels in the Emergency Room."

Hikaru moaned, thrusting his head even further into his Japanese edition of the Wall Street Journal. B-ko, who was reading Manyushu, rolled her eyes at her stepmother. Arisa - ever observant - bared her teeth and hissed at her stepsister.

"So, Hikaru," the Captain said, strolling casually over to him (well, as casually as a six-foot green-headed alien with a slab of raw meat covering half her face can be). "Are you going to can her sorry butt, or am I going to have to pound her into guacamole and then drop-kick her past Jupiter Station?"

I'd like to see that - I surely would - Daitokuji thought before sitting up straight. "Er, ahem, Dollface. You know full well I can't fire her. She knows where all the bodies are buried."

Arisa and Akana looked up from their playing and gasped.

"Figuratively, girls. Figuratively. That's just a Terran expression."

The two eyeballed him, shrugged, and went back to playing Kirlian Death Attack.

"Besides, we have a much bigger problem. Apparently, what the Director of Commerce told us is true. I checked with a number of sources. To bankroll your project, my mother will have to sign off."

"What will we do?" the Captain said.

"I don't know. She won't talk to me. She won't even return my phone calls." Daitokuji was silent for a few moments, then smiled a most unpleasant smile. "B-ko, my dear," he began, turning in his seat.

"No way, Father," she said. "It's your mess. You just had to take up with the drag queen over there and fill my home with her whelps and all their alien claptrap. Fix it yourself."

The former Captain bit her fist. Akana picked up her AK-47 and hit "Enable."

Hikaru, now desperate, cackled loudly. "Please? I'll pay for your next mecha."

The blue-haired young woman considered it briefly, then dismissed it. "Don't try to bribe me, Father. You adopted these little creeps," she said in her haughtiest Lady-of-the-Manor voice, gesturing at the Cygnettes. "That means they're her granddaughters too, doesn't it? Send one of them!"

The room was silent. Hikaru looked at Captain. Captain looked at Hikaru. The Cygnettes looked at one another, and then at B-ko (at whom they made rude hand gestures).

Hikaru shrugged. "Well, it's a possibility. Little Shiiko is much too young to send." Shiiko was the couple's first child, who received a lot of attention as she was Earth's first fully-documented Cygnan-Terran hybrid.

"Absolutely. I heard that your mother enjoys babies - on toast."

The Captain sighed and slapped the steak down on a Chippendale side table. It made a nasty slopping sound, and immediately drew her stepdaughter's wrath.

"That's Eighteenth Century, you barbarian!" B-ko cried, pointing in indignation. Without a word, Akana speared the piece of meat with her bayonet and chased B-ko out of the room with it.

"Hmmmm. Sending little Shiiko might be the best alternative, you know."

"Are you serious, Hicky? Your mother would probably sell her into slavery. Leave my poor little baby alone." Akana, reentering the room she now considered "secured", winced at Captain's use of the term.

"What about B-ko's suggestion, then?"

"Get real. That harridan wouldn't even let one of my girls up her front walk."

"She might, if she didn't know who she was - at least at first."

"What's in that cuckoo-bird head of yours, my little samurai?" his wife replied, wrapping her arms around his neck and growling in his ear.

"A plan. And a good one at that."

The billionaire looked over his paper and grinned at Alana.

What now, thought Daughter Number Two.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"How are you doing, Mother?" said Shinobu Daitokuji, giving the matriarch an air-kiss.

"I'm doing," the scowling old woman curtly returned.

As friendly as ever, her daughter and Hikaru's sister thought. No wonder I've been married half a dozen times. I grew up in Dysfunction Junction.

Shini looked around the elaborately-decorated room. Its elegance made her brother's Graviton City mansion look like a hovel. "Mother, why don't you let me redecorate in here for you? It would be fun."

"I'd sooner slit my own throat," the old woman responded. "Have you gotten rid of your latest husband yet?"

The slender blue-haired woman sighed deeply. "Mother, you know I have. I got the stocks - "

"Yes?"

"and the paintings - "

"Yes?"

" - and the house around the paintings - "

"Yes?"

" - and the carriage house, and the yacht, and the helicopter pad, and the sports megaplex in downtown Osaka."

The dowager sniffed. "Sports Complex. Tss. Tacky is as tacky·does. Why can't you keep a husband longer than six weeks, Shinobu? You go through them like Kleenex. And why can't you produce some heirs? Right now, after you and your airhead brother, the sole heir to the family fortune is little Biko."

Shinobu smirked and sat down on a damask-covered overstuffed chair. She crossed her long thin legs and fired up a cig. "Aren't you forgetting something? First, 'little Biko' is a teenager. And second, your sonny-boy adopted those five alien brats and then his broody-sow wife popped out another."

"They'll get my money over my dead body," Mitsuko Daitokuji said coldly.

"As you wish," said Shinobu with another smirk (a small one; smirking causes wrinkles). She had spent her entire life tormenting her big brother, and even now in middle age, Shini hadn't tired of the sport. And now that Hikaru had been stupid enough to marry that hatchet-faced Captain Drunkalita, he made a more tempting target than ever. In fact, dear brother, you might as well have painted a ring with a bull's eye across your vest, she thought. Or - better yet - across the seat of your britches. She cackled, sounding as well as looking like her beloved sibling.

"What are you going on about, Shinobu?" her mother said, gesturing to a servant to bring them tea.

"Oh, nothing. I'm just so glad we boycotted the wedding."

Mitsuko Daitokuji sniffed. "It probably wasn't even legal. All that heathen Mother Goddess mumbo-jumbo. And held in a stadium - ! I'm surprised my son didn't have the Goodyear Blimp circling overhead."

"Actually, Mother, I think he did." Shini now recalled telephoning the couple at 4:00 a.m. on their wedding morning. She'd had a few pops; she couldn't quite remember what she had said to Hikaru but thought it had involved casting aspersions on the bride's gender and the groom's sexual preference. Oh, she had gotten that arrogant creep good, all right! Of course, from that moment on, the gloves were off between them, so to speak. Shinobu giggled like a girl at the memory.

"And that reception - !" she continued, eager to further fan the flames. "A scandal, Mother. A bunch of tarted-up aliens, chugging my brother's liquor like there was no tomorrow and dragging those Earth Defense Force boys into the bushes. My brother is lucky the Vice Squad didn't raid the place."

"From what I understand," said her mother, delicately sipping her tea, "every member of the Vice Squad was there, partaking of the - festivities. You can't arrest yourself, you know."

"Yes, Mother. I'm sure you're right." Shini butted her Krakatoa Kretek clove-flavored Indonesian cigarette in a Dresden saucer and took a sip of oolong tea.

"Of course I am. I had my agents thoroughly infiltrate the place. I even got air recon photos. And stop using my good china to grind out those filthy things. You might be able to hold onto a man if you didn't smoke, Shinobu. And it's bad for your health in the bargain."

She stared at her mother in mock amazement. "Really? Oh, thank you! No one has ever told me that before!"

"And you also might be able to hold onto a man if you filed down those horns an inch or two," Mitsuko fired back.

The fashion designer sighed, knowing full well that it was useless to argue. It was like throwing marshmallows at a tank. Suddenly, she threw the scowling woman a fetching smile. "Mother, is there just - tea?"

"Do you mean you want a shot of liquor in it, Shinobu?"

"Well, a shot never did a cup of tea any harm," she said lightly. Actually, a good belt of booze was an outright necessity if she intended to spend any more time with her nerve-wracking parent.

"You'd better watch it, my dear," the dowager replied, putting down her cup. "You'll end up like your sister-in-law, spending the rest of your life going to meetings in church basements."