Page 70 - The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

Lies, deceit and damnation, all in the name of love

Morgana and her elder suitor departed the vessel and headed to the waiting Buraxin
Trader ship that was their connecting flight to Unity territory out by the Rim. They were
headed for a remote system called Viridiana 9. This was one of the earliest Rim colonies and
home of a race of amphibian humans. Genetically modified to survive on the main planetary
body, a water world called Jenaxa. Its moon; Forbia, was habitable by air breathing life
forms from all over the galaxy. It had become a vast trading hub. Many of the former Terran
Dynasties had made it their home. The Lucerne family, however, were not among these.
Their ancestors had been among a handful of former Dark Empire Syndicates that had
broken free of that particular reign of tyranny. But old habits die hard. And it was a tradition
among these families to take life partners from their old pastures. Josiah Lucerne was the
last of his line of the family to carry the old name. Most of his siblings had changed the
family name to break ties with their past. But his father had been a “traditionalist” so he
kept the name alive. He had wooed and taken Morgana as his intended. It was this
attraction that had finally made him to take a fateful decision, to sever all ties with the
family business on Kelgar and start afresh. He knew how devious Morgana was, and that
made her a shrewd business woman also. It had been her idea to spark a Turf War between
the Syndicates, as a distraction. He’d carefully erased all records of his birth etc. and
liquidated his “assets” into many hedge funds. He would transfer all these to his new central
account here on Forbia. Morgana had wanted to be free of her “family ties” so they
developed a mutual arrangement. Neither of them had expected love to flourish in this, but
as is always the way of fickle fate, it had.

He had struck up a side business relationship with an intermediary, Jaden Whelks,
who had brokered a deal with the Caveat Brigade’s legal division for a marriage permit. That
would be a severed link now, with all the blame carefully misdirected. He had to admit that
tampering with the Force Hive was a stroke of genius. If the authorities managed to revive
the Hive, he and Morgana would be non-existent as far as all records would show. His line of
the family would have appeared to end with his eldest half-brother. Who; incidentally,
would end up taking the blame for the bombing. Korin never knew about his fathers
“illegitimate” family. That was one thing he really appreciated about good old Dad. His
mother had passed away some ten years ago. He had always used his mother’s maiden
name as his surname in all his business affairs. He had learned many skills from his time in
the youth gangs on Kelgar and elsewhere, Explosives and electronics being key ones and all
the time using a false identity that would lead to some other poor soul whose identity he
had taken. Disguise was his special art. His flirtations with the business markets had netted
him his first fortune. Most of that had been used to acquire shares of Syndicate interests on
a temporary basis. Why not profit from the deceit of others? He had also studied the legal
systems of many of the Unity and Sonoran Trust worlds. He knew how to work the system.
How, in many cases, a few well-placed lies, backed with circumstantial evidence, could lead
to the damnation of an intended target without them knowing it was you who had
conceived their downfall. Even “legitimate” business was just as ruthless as crime.

Morgana believed she had finally found a sort of peace. By now her hateful step-
brother would be under suspicion by the Force if they had read the many clues she had
placed for them to find. Mortimer’s little vixen had not gone unnoticed by her, quite the
contrary; she had played that card well. For what Mortimer had never known was Kirsty was