Chapter 10 - Showdown

As the three of them took their places on hard wooden benches, A-ko heard the word "traitor" whispered about the boat more than once, and always at her mother.

C-ko sat on A-ko's left and her mother sat on her right. A-ko watched as her mother sat up tall and proud, staring straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the whispers around her. But A-ko was old enough now to see the sadness on her mother's face also, no matter how well or how hard her mother tried to hide it.

Even when Philippus removed her helmet and sat down next to her mother, that same forlorn look of despair never left her mother's face. A-ko began to think that coming to meet her grandmother might not have been such a good idea after all - not if it meant this much pain to her mother.

A-ko stared sadly at her own feet as they scraped the deck. It hurt her too much to look at her mother and see how sad she looked. But A-ko couldn't do this for long; eventually, she looked up and saw her mother's tears. But this time, A-ko saw a small smile on her face as well.

A-ko couldn't understand the sudden change in her mother. In trying to find the cause, the redhead leaned back and looked down the bench at her mother's one-time teacher and friend. There between them - between teacher and pupil, between friends and Sisters - A-ko saw that they were holding hands.

They hadn't said a word, not even a single whisper. But even at her young age A-ko learned that day that a simple touch between friends could speak volumes, and that feelings of love and affection can sometimes be best expressed not with words, but with a simple and heartfelt gesture.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The limousine door slammed, and former Starship Captain Aysha Napolipolita-Daitokuji stormed up the walkway which led to her mother-in-law's front door.

Shinobu's limo had pulled up right behind HIKI- 2. "What are you doing here?" Biko hissed at her stepmother. "Get out of here! You'll wreck everything!"

The Captain, dressed in a green silk knee-length dress with matching heels (she had thought the sparkle-heeled ones too flashy for Mitsuko Daitokuji's exquisite taste), stared at her.

"Biko! Shinobu! What is going on here? Where is my daughter?"

Alana's heart skipped a beat when she saw the three women enter the library. Mitsuko smirked at the tall, raw-boned person standing in front of her. Alana's mother bowed and removed her dark glasses. "I am Aysheia Napolipolita-Daitokuji."

"I know who you are, woman. I read the newspapers, you know."

"I came here because I wanted to make sure Biko and our - visitor were being no trouble to you."

"Horse manure," the old woman snapped. "You're as big a liar as your girl, Captain."

All three females gasped at this.

"Don't worry. Your little gal here and I have been having ourselves a time. She's had to listen to me whine and moan about a lot of old stuff that I'm sure she doesn't care a fig about, and she's been a good sport about it. Sit down. I understand my son's knocked you up again. No point in having you pitch forward and fall on your face. Happened to me once, when I was carrying Shinobu. Although that was one hell of a long time ago."

Shinobu blushed to her hairline.

"Sit down, I said. I know you understand Japanese - "

The Captain remained standing. The others stared at her.

"Your girl says what she has on her mind. Not like that mealy-mouthed spoiled brat standing over there. Biko, ring the bell for the servant."

"Ring your own bell, Grandmother," Biko spat. "Isn't this just lovely? First shaming me in front of everyone, and then taking to this alien kid! What did I ever do to you, Grandmother, except be born your son's daughter?"

Captain put her hands on the girl's shoulders. Biko shrugged them off.

Mitsuko sighed. "I'm eighty damn years old this past March and I'm not going to change now. I've hoped to God that you're not as big a lunkhead as your father. I still have my doubts. Sit down, child. Alana can move her big feet and make room."

Alana sat up and tucked her stockinged feet under her. Biko, near tears, sat next to her and stared at her hands, which nervously twisted around each other in her lap.

"Stop that fidgeting, now. I can't abide fidgeters." The old woman's gaze now fell upon the Captain. "Will you sit down, woman? I'm not going to bite you. At least not right now."

"I will, once the others leave. You and I need to have a private conversation." She stared steadily at the old woman, still every inch the commander she once was.

Mitsuko smiled, her eyes glittering. "Shinobu, get off your useless duff and take these children out for something to eat."

"I just ate," said Biko.

"So eat again! What's wrong with you, girl? I don't want you here! Move it!"

Shinobu, giving the eye to her sister-in-law, pushed the girls out the library door. "Love-ly dress, Captain. Who designed it - that mewling, simpering Southern belle Lorraine McTamoshanter?"

"No. Hezilon Mikulai. A Cygnan dress designer who makes your tacky stuff look like a dream wardrobe for street trash."

"And you should know, Captain," Shinobu said. "I believe there's a couple of Enquirers over there which chronicle your own descent into the depths. De Profundis -"

Knowing that anger was useless, Aysha stared her down instead. "That was a cheap shot, but typical of you, Shinobu. I lost my home and family. I was also so sick I nearly died. And I would have, if your brother - whom you hold in such contempt - hadn't helped me."

Oh, to Avernus with it, she thought. Gloves off.

"Why don't you run along and pick up another husband on your way to the restaurant? You can steal his assets and ditch him by this time next week!"

"Good one!" the old woman cackled. "Get out of here, Shinobu."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The three left. The room was silent while the two women sized each other up.

"I don't understand you," the former Captain said. "Your son has been a success, even under your own standards. He was alone for years. He made a lot of mistakes, but he's doing what he can now to correct them. I want to know why you reject him."

"That'll take a few hours. I - "

"I'm not finished. I also want to know why my girls and I stick in your craw. I have no mother and my daughters have no grandmother. We would have been happy to have your friendship, but you prefer instead to reject us. I want to know why."

"Let's see," Mitsuko Daitokuji replied. "Number one. I reject your husband because he's a horse's ass with a big bank account. Number two. I reject you - well, I think Shinobu put it correctly, which is highly unusual for her - because you're nothing but street trash."

The Captain gritted her teeth.

"I reject your brats because they're God-only-knows what kind of alien mongrels. Mutts. Not fit to be raised in the same house as my blood granddaughter, pain-in-the-butt that she is. Her mother was beautiful, and a lady to boot. You, on the other hand, are nothing but a homely as-sin, crazy drunk."

Aysha went white.

"Your own people tossed you out like a used handkerchief! I see right through you, woman. Right - through - you."

The Cygnan breathed a quick prayer to the Mother for self-control. "My children are beautiful. I am a woman who's trying very hard to overcome her obstacles. Unlike you, I love your son, and it hurts me to see him in pain after you rip into him."

"Aww," the dowager cooed.

"What a vicious tongue you have, Ma'am. It's true that Hikaru hurt Biko. But it was a sin of omission; a matter of neglect. But you've hurt her far worse by attacking who and what she is. That's much more cruel. That's much more unforgivable. And, what's worse - you enjoy it!"

Mitsuko picked up her teacup and took a sip. The tea was stone-cold, but it didn't matter. She did it for effect. "You're mad because I call things like I see them. My son's only interest in you is mercenary. You helped the Daitokuji Financial Group - which is my company and not yours - make millions on the ENDY. That's all he wanted. It's just a matter of time before he tosses you out the door, and just a matter of time before you pick up the booze again."

"None of that is true."

"Of course it is. I know drunks. My husband was one."

"I know," Captain said, not dropping her eyes. "Hikaru told me."

"I don't appreciate your sloshing even more alcohol into the Daitokuji bloodline, either. They say it's hereditary. If so, my son's half-breed kids run even a bigger risk of growing up to be drunks like you. Get my drift?"

"You think I've poisoned your illustrious line? Perhaps you did that yourself when you married Hikaru's father. You knew what he was, even then. It was his money that you wanted, wasn't it?"

The dowager raised an eyebrow.

"You took his money from him and then you watched him die. There was help for him, even back then. But his getting sober would mean his getting stronger, and you didn't want that. You preferred him sick and weak and scrambled. And so you kept the help away from him, and he died. Well, congratulations, Lady. You only had to kill off the patriarch himself to preserve your precious bloodline."

"You have a mighty high opinion of yourself. I read about the kinds of things you did. Disgraceful."

"Alcoholics often do things they don't want to do, with people they don't want to be with, in places where they don't want to be. I can't explain why. And I certainly don't owe you any amends, because I never did you any harm. I can only stay sober a day at a time - no more and no less. If that's not good enough, then to Avernus with you."

Mitsuko chuckled, steepling her hands in front of her. "Quoting ancient Greek, are we? Suprised you have enough intact brain cells."

"It's not Greek. It's Leptonian. It is the equivalent of the Terran Hell."

"I know that."

"Do you need directions?"

"You're bad enough, but your husband's no saint. I could tell you tales that would curl that stick-straight hair of yours."

"I know all about him, Mother-in-Law. He knows all about me. You seem to forget that there's a huge difference between the two of you. Even before he came to know and love me – even when his interest in me was only mercenary, as you said – he put me in the hospital. He paid for it when I could not. He visited me there. He encouraged me. He gave an emotionally destroyed and homesick woman hope for the future, at a time when suicide seemed to her a blessing."

The old woman smirked.

"In other words, Mitsuko-sama - he saved my life. Unlike you, he didn't stand by and watch an alcoholic sicken and die in order to line his own pockets!"

"I thought you aliens hated men. Your culture forbids cohabitation. What do you mean by marrying in the first place?"

"We do not hate men. We just don't have very many of them. And you'd prefer our system if you had half a brain in your head; this Terran patriarchy gives me the shivering hits."

"I've got a damned sight more than half a brain, woman. Don't your Cygnan 'Sisters' consider you a traitor for leaving them for a male? Haven't you gone against 'the Ways'?"

"Followers of the Great Mother officiated at our wedding - not that you were there, of course - and Shiiko's Bikreet. Cygnans who aren't in the military are allowed to take lifemates. We just can't live on the Homeworld if we do. That isn't a problem, since the Lepton Kingdom spans 33 galaxies. There are plenty of places to be in love - to bear children - and to be happy."

"That doesn't explain why you picked my son. You damned fool! Are your brains too addled to remember that he was the one who shot down your ship?"

"An Amazon - as you Terrans like to call a strong and resolute female soldier - is obligated for life to any male who vanquishes her. This is true in the Cygnan Empire and even here in the race of Terran Amazons, if legends be true. Hikaru defeated me when he brought my ship down. Later, when he wanted me to sober up and work for him, I had to agree. It was the Cygnan Way."

"Even though it was his fault you ended up on the street?"

"It wasn't his fault. It was mine. If I hadn't been so drunk, I wouldn't have placed my vessel in a position of peril. There is no end to the mistakes I made. What is worse is that I am unable to remember many of them."

"So, all of this was purely out of principle, then? And his money had nothing to do with it, I suppose. Hah. What was your last known address before you sunk your meat hooks into my son? A stack of boxes in an alley?"

"Listen to me closely, hag. I signed a waiver of any right I have to his money. He threw it away but I fished it out of the trash, and it's in my safe deposit box at the Graviton City Bank."

"So he didn't trust you after all!" The old woman laughed. "Amazing. My idiot son actually did something right!"

"Don't you call him names in front of me, Lady. Don't you dare. I love him and won't have it, do you understand me?" The Captain had to stop to remember that she was dealing with an elderly woman who weighed perhaps ninety pounds, soaking wet. One blow from her would probably kill her, and she was close to dealing it.

Calm down Aysha calm down calm down calm down -

"No, the waiver wasn't his doing. It was B-ko's. She had me sign it under false pretenses. But I'm glad she did. Because it tells my husband and the world - you included - exactly where I stand."

The old woman clapped her hands together. "Thank you. Thank you very much. You've helped us preserve our bottom line. Wonderful!"

The Captain felt her fingernails cutting into her palms, but it couldn't be helped. It was either that or clop this nasty old woman across the room. "I've made my own fortune, Ma'am. My residuals from the ENDY's development will keep me a multi-millionaire for the rest of my life. I don't need a male's money."

"Then why do you deign to live in a male's home, if you're so high-and mighty?"

"Because mine was destroyed. But that's beside the point, and you know it. I would rather live in the gutter with a clear conscience than live as you do. You have a lovely home, Mitsuko, but your heart is rotten. As of this moment, I no longer care. I will never again try to approach you, or please you, or long for your affection - "

Mitsuko stared at her.

" - because you have none to give. Goodbye, Lady."

The Captain bowed, stood up straight, and walked out the door.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Get us the hell out of here," Aysha snapped to her chauffeur. "And Shinobu, get your ratty old carcass out of my way."

"Bra-va, Sister-in-Law! Wish I'd have said it myself!"

The Captain turned on her. "Don't tell me you were listening in. Then why don't you go right on ahead? She's still sitting in the library with her jaw scraping the floor. But you won't, and I know why. It's because you're no better than she is. Marrying those poor old men and bleeding them dry! And you call me a gold digger! Great Mother!"

Shinobu's ice-blue eyes grew wide.

"And you'd better stay the hell away from me, too. And stay the hell away from my beautiful children, including Shiiko and our little one on the way. I'm sick of your snottiness, sick of your arrogance, sick of your stuffing this girl's head - " she gestured at Biko, who stood with her mouth open - " - with your nonsense. Both you and your mother have been poisoned with your money and your power." She shoved both Biko and Alana into HIKI-2. "You make me sick. Both of you."

Hikaru's sister gasped.

The former Captain had one more thought, one that was painful to her. Shinobu had made goo-goo eyes at her father, Theram Avaris, at their last social event, and it galled her. "Oh. One more thing, Shinobu. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM MY FATHER, OR THERE WILL BE NOTHING LEFT OF YOU BUT SCRAPS."

Shinobu crossed her arms as the limousine made its way down the long driveway. "Damn," she whispered, and whistled through her teeth. She turned to face the enormous house, and patted her French twist to make sure it was neat.

Well, and how did you like that, Mother? she thought. It really would have been better for all of us if you'd jumped into the grave right after we planted my father.

After all, you put him there –