Read Imperial Bounty for Free Online

they were eventually forced to make the prison their home. If you can call an impregnable fortress, surrounded by orbiting weapons platforms, "home."
    Having no desire to waste ships or lives attacking the pirate headquarters, the Emperor decided to tolerate the pirates as long as they didn't get out of hand. A pragmatist to the end, the Emperor decided the pirates might feed off the Empire, but by god they would defend it as well. Their eternal skirmishes with the Il Ronn made for less pressure on the navy, which in turn lowered taxes, which made his wealthy supporters happy. Not long after making that decision, he died and his son took the throne. Now the son was also dead, and his son must follow, or the entire Empire might be lost.
    McCade looked at Terra on his main viewscreen and sighed. She floated against the black backdrop of space like a blue-green jewel wrapped in cotton. He was approaching her slowly, almost reluctantly, delaying the moment when Pegasus entered Earth's gravitational field and was pulled down toward the surface. Once there he'd be committed, forced to begin the search for Alexander, and unable to quit once he got started. And it wouldn't be easy. Arrayed against him were Claudia, her personal retainers, and a vast number of governmental and military personnel willing to do her bidding.
    According to Walt, a large number of people were betting their careers that the prince wouldn't be found. Or, he thought grimly, that if found, the prince wouldn't live long enough to take the throne.
    And, if Claudia's plans for McCade were any example, they were probably right. She must have a spy on Admiral Keaton's staff, because within hours of his decision to solicit McCade's help, she'd filed with the Assassin's Guild for a level-three license on the bounty hunter. A level three would allow the assassins to kill not only McCade, but anyone else who happened to be in the way as well. It was legal, but damned expensive, and indicated how much she wanted him out of the way. And to make things even worse, he'd run up against the Guild in the past, and they were no doubt looking forward to evening the score. It was a depressing thought.
    He shook his head ruefully, and Terra disappeared behind a cloud of smoke as he puffed a new cigar into life. He tapped a few keys on the control console. Pegasus picked up speed, and started down toward the planet below. Somewhere down there he'd find Alexander's trail. It was more than two years cold, but he'd find it. Just as he'd found so many others over the years.
    Bounty hunters were a strange breed. Hated by fugitives, disliked by planetary police, and romanticized by the public, they lived a strange twilight existence between two worlds. Heroes one moment, villains the next, bounty hunters soon learned to trust no one but themselves. They lived to run up their score, both for the financial rewards involved, and for their own egos. In so doing they performed an important function.
    Like every other human society the Empire generated its share of criminals, sociopaths, and perverts. While most planets had some form of police force, there was no interplanetary agency for law enforcement. Oh, it had been suggested often enough, but ultimately no one wanted to pay for it. The last thing people wanted was more taxes. Besides, the planets valued what independence they had, and weren't eager to create still another Imperial agency to start mucking around in their affairs. So, bounty hunters were just another expression of the Emperor's pragmatism. If it works, leave it alone. And it certainly worked.
    Bounty hunters could access a current list of interplanetary fugitives on any public terminal. Listed were their names, aliases, histories, habitual weapons, and, most important of all, the size of the reward offered for their capture or death. Sometimes the reward was conditional, specifying a particular fugitive must be brought in alive, but that was rare. Normally dead was just