[center][h3][b]The Babylon Bar – High Orbit of Parousia – The Halcyon Continuance[/b][/h3][/center]

“Fuck.”

“Oh please, it's not that bad.”

“...”

“Ok, sure, some people died-”

“Five thousand people, Arthur.  Five thousand people died.”

“Pah,” Arthur shrugged, “Not even in the top ten accidents this year then.”

“That's not the fucking point!  Do you seriously not have any idea how bad this is?  That fucking ship was supposed to be our ticket to a place at the table, nobility Arthur, a god damn legacy!  It was the culmination of five years of work.  Five. Fucking. Years.”

Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed deeply before going on, “How the fuck did this happen, Arthur?  How the fuck did a prototype stealth ship [i]run into a fucking space station at speed[/i]?  This isn't some classical fucking movie, that, this doesn't happen.  It just doesn't.”

“Well,” Arthur hesitated and emphasized, “[i]Obviously[/i], there wasn't anything left to pick over.  Well, anything bigger than your pinkie finger.  Best I've got so far is either pilot error, which seems unlikely given the pilot we hired is going to cost nearly a tenth the godforsaken ship if we pay out his life insurance, or sabotage.  I'm inclined to go that way myself, given the ITC Conference, our big chance as you wont stop reminding me, is about to kick off.”

Patrick slumped in his chair and uttered a familiar refrain, “Fuck.”

This time his brother Arthur didn't do more than bite his lip.  The truth was, this absolutely was a big fucking disaster.  Top ten in terms of fatalities or not, the money that had been sunk into the ironically named [i]Splinter[/i], given that was what it was mostly composed of now, wasn't insignificant.  In truth, it was a hell of a lot more than they actually had.

Not that Patrick knew that.  One didn't borrow money from the largest criminal enterprises in the cluster, promise them access to your proprietary technology, and then go and [i]tell their brother and business partner about it.[/i]  Especially when ones brother and business partner would have had a panic attack at the mere thought.

Though, in retrospect, perhaps that might have averted Arthur feeling the beginnings of a panic attack coming on now.  Yes, everyone knew it was idiocy to take loans from the Cartels and the Triads and all the other reprobates in the Eden Cluster, but guess what?  It was even dumber to go to Adamantium Bank.  At least Arthur was probably only going to get killed over this.  

Arthur waved at a passing server girl and ordered a [i]very[/i] stiff drink.  Actually, he ordered three.

Patrick eyed his brother, and decided to order two himself.  Aware of his impending peril or not, the red haired businessman was absolutely not going to get through the rest of the day sober. 

Still, ignoring the problem wouldn't make it go away, “So, Arthur, is there [i]any[/i] good news then? We've lost our largest single asset, the proof our technology even works, the ITC Conference is about to start and we have nothing to present, oh and god knows how many lawyers to hire so the accident claims don't sink us further.”

“We still have time to run away?”

“Excuse me?”

“Look,” Arthur met his brothers eyes, “We're done.  Fucked.  You said it.  We don't have anywhere close to the cash reserve we need to survive this and we have no evidence it was sabotage, so any lawyers we hire are going to have a hell of a time deflecting liability.  Do you want to spend the rest of your life on the lower levels of Raygon?  Or on a factory world?  This is a fucking disaster.  There I said it, happy?  It's a big, colossal, assfucking mess, but there’s one plus here Patrick, one.”

Patrick looked at his brother incredulously, “And what the fuck is that Arthur.”

“Nobody knows we did it, not yet.  Nobody has a goddamn clue that it was [i]our[/i] stealth ship that hit that station so hard there are body parts strewn across half the system.  We have time to liquidate everything and fuck off.  We have time to run away.”

As it happens, every living sapient has a point in their life where they're given a choice.  Patrick had thought that was a bit of a platitude, but now he found himself in that position.  To his, and his species credit, he did exactly what any other intelligent, self respecting, arguably moral, businessman would.

“Ok.” Patrick stood up, “Fuck.  Lets skip on the drinks and drain everything.  Thank god almighty that mother is dead.”

Arthur nodded, grabbed one of his drinks anyway, and all but took off to the docks, Patrick close behind him.  After all, bravery and morality had their place, and that place was absolutely not above an arid Putt infested shithole like Parousia.

Besides, it was only five thousand people.  Not the worst disaster of the year.  Not even close!  It probably wouldn't even make the news in the core worlds.  After all, what were the chances that anyone important was on that station?  Minuscule.  Arthur and Patrick would hide out for a while, a few years, and then when everything had blown over they could come back.  Try to forge their legacy again.

It was all going to work out...

Right?