Chapter 4 – The Plan

"My nose is itching," said the ex-starship Captain to Hikaru Daitokuji. "Someone's talking about me." She watched him in front of their bedroom vanity mirror, standing sideways and trying to suck in his gut.

"Someone's always talking about you, my dear," he responded. "You're very hard to miss." He slapped the underside of his chin with irritation. "Time for more liposuction."

"Forget the lipo, Hicky-sama. Instead, explain to me again why you won't fire those twin lunatics who make my professional life a living hell." She shoved him out of the way in front of the mirror so that she could admire her new Victoria's Cyber-Secret spandex-and-lace teddy.

"Because if I did, the Corporation would be on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Remember how you beat hell out of Ol' Baldy a few months ago?"

"He had it coming. Jackass tried to cut my departmental budget!"

"I know that, Dollface, but the fact remains that you put him in the hospital for a week."

"We paid the bill, didn't we?"

Hikaru rubbed his blue eyes. There was no point in explaining the Japanese judicial system to Aysha. The only justice she understood was at the muzzle of a pulse cannon or the end of her fists. "Yes, Dollface. We did. But it doesn't matter when the Director of Development's threatens to file criminal charges against you with the Prosecutor's Office, you know."

"What? Don't you have those clowns on the payroll?"

"I don't have everyone on my payroll, my dearest." He sighed. "You really shouldn't have dynamited the man's car."

"He called me that bad name your secretary used!" the ex-Captain huffed, crossing her arms and taking long strides around the enormous master bedroom. "Anyway, that was Akana."

"Well, my dear," he said, "the fact remains that if you want to build your precious ship, you'll have to help me figure out a way to finance it. And that means helping me figure out a way to manipulate the dough from my mother's bank accounts."

She flopped onto the enormous bed and laughed. "Maybe I should sacrifice a goat to Cybele."

"A goat?" Daitokuji cackled. "Try a herd of buffalo, sweetheart."

"Hickeeeeeeeeeee? Don't I look adorable?" The man was still lost in thought, stewing over his financial wheelings- and-dealings. His failure to provide an immediate affirmative response was a mistake. Grinning, the former Miss Napolipolita smacked him in the head with a queen-sized feather pillow, knocking him to the mahogany parquet floor.

Gotcha! And you thought I couldn't shoot straight, you kakamatandis!

He sat up, his hands on his head and his green fur-trimmed smoking jacket slightly askew. "Now, now, my little space warrior. That wasn't sporting."

"Oh, I'm so terribly sorry," she said, rapidly batting her eyelashes. Hikaru mutely watched as the breeze they generated blew the dust kitties on the floor along a couple of inches. She then stood on the bed, flexing her biceps and admiring her athletic form in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. "But - then again - you know how I get when a male comes within targeting range - "

With a dismal groan, the billionaire got up from the floor, taking his own sweet time because his joints were aching and his outlook was darkened.

"HEY. Terran." She poked him. "Yoo Hoo."

"Hmmmm? Oh, I'm sorry, my dear." A brainstorm hit him. "Dollface! Maybe we could name the one currently in production after my mother!"

"I'd sooner kiss Monty Zuma," she replied, pretending to stick a finger down her throat. "She's barely been around a couple of months and you're already figuring her into your moneymaking schemes!"

He stared at her. "Listen. You aren't familiar with our ways. However this financing will be done, it will have to be done with finesse. You can't go around punching out my executives, or my secretary. And unfortunately, you can't shove a pulse rifle against my mother's temple and expect her to hand you thirteen billion dollars. It doesn't work that way."

She sighed.

"Trust me on this. Besides. It's not my moneymaking scheme, my dear. It's yours."

"Ours, my parakeet. Besides. I thought we were naming her after my father."

"What? Give her a man's name?"

"A female derivative of it, chucklehead. Avarisa - Avaria - I haven't decided." The Captain's father, Theram Avaris, had shown up at her doorstep not too long ago, nearly dead from drinking. They had poured all their resources into making the old man well and happy. "I promised him, Sweet Hicky."

"Well - how about both names? Avaria Mitsuko - or Mitsuko Avaria - or something like that? What think you, Dollface?"

"My poor little half-Terran babies, Hicky. "A drunk for a mother, a drunk for a grandpa and a psycho for a grandma."

"I notice that you left me out of that equation."

"You're so much better than you used to be. Great Goddess! I used to lie awake at night, planning my revenge against your attack on my ship!"

"Anything good?"

"Disintegration with a particle beam would have been too quick. Incarceration too merciful. I think I had it narrowed down to a choice between drawing and quartering or the bastinado."

"Yikes!"

"Well - you were very bad."

"Were? I'm glad you feel that way!"

"I did at the time. Once you shot my ship down, I became yours under Cygnan tradition. What a blow to my ego! I always wondered why you didn't have me kidnapped or assassinated - one of the two - "

"Let's see. Kidnapping would mean that I could have the entire Space Fleet after me, with this lovely little mansion you like so well becoming ground-zero. It would also mean that I would have to keep you stocked in booze. I don't have that much money, my dear."

"Oooh, that hurt."

"Sorry, just a joke. I also didn't think that assassination was necessary, because you were already on the way out. I knew it wouldn't be too long before you were out of the picture either by your own hand or by alcohol poisoning. I wouldn't have to lift a finger."

"It's hard to think of the old days."

"Make sure you do once in a while, Dollface. As your Program says, 'look back on the past, but don't stare'."

"Yes," she sighed. "I don't want to forget how bad it was. I never thought I would ever get sober, and you helped me – so that I could work for your zaibatsu, of course, but save me you did."

"Compared with all that, a tussle with my mother seems the least of your worries, doesn't it?"

"Don't underestimate her. Why is she still around, anyway? I thought you Terrans euthanized rabid dogs."