Galactic Bounty Read Online Free PDF Page A

angrily.
    "Damn it man . . . we don't check captains in and out like children at a boarding school."
    "What makes you so sure he took off of his own volition?" McCade asked. "How do you know he wasn't abducted or murdered?"
    "We don't," Swanson-Pierce answered, frowning down at the surface of his desk. "But we've received no ransom demand and his body hasn't turned up anywhere." His eyes came up to meet McCade's. "So we're forced to assume he's disappeared voluntarily . . . and we've got to act on that assumption." McCade nodded and the other man continued. "As you saw in the holo, Bridger still feels a pathological hatred for pirates, which is hardly surprising. What happened to his wife and daughter is common knowledge. The liner Mars found drifting, its drive sabotaged by the crew, stripped of cargo, lifeboats still in place, but no crew or passengers aboard, except for the bodies, of course."
    Swanson-Pierce fell silent for a moment, possibly thinking about the fate of those passengers and crew who had survived. It was said the pirates were always short of women. And then there was slavery. And Bridger's daughter had been very pretty, even beautiful. Both Swanson-Pierce and McCade had admired her from afar during her frequent visits to the Imperial.
    Swanson-Pierce resumed his narrative. "And there's Bridger's career. It didn't prosper after the Battle of Hell, and I imagine that too fed his hatred of the pirates."
    The naval officer stood and began to pace back and forth.
    "After you, ah, left the Imperial, we, along with the rest of Keaton's fleet, chased the pirates as far as the frontier. Then they split up and took off in all directions. Rather than divide his forces, Keaton decided discretion was the better part of valor, and we returned to base. Chances are the Il Ronn got quite a few of the pirates in any case."
    McCade knew the other man was right. Of all the alien species Man had encountered, the Il Ronn were the most dangerous. Not because they were the most intelligent or advanced. There were many alien races more advanced than either Man or the Il Ronn. But because the Il Ronn were the most like Man, they were a constant threat. They too had built a stellar empire at the expense of less aggressive races. They too had almost unlimited ambitions. Now only a thinning band of unexplored frontier worlds provided a buffer between the two empires. Fortunately the races had physiological differences which were expressed in a desire for radically different kinds of real estate.
    The Il Ronn preferred the hot dry planets avoided by Man and shunned the wet worlds humans liked, in spite of the fact that water held tremendous religious significance for them. Occasionally, however, both would desire a single planet regardless of climate, usually due to its unique mineral wealth. When that happened, conflict usually followed. But so far one or the other had always backed down short of all-out war. Nonetheless the Il Ronn considered any ships straying into their sector fair game, and both Imperial and pirate craft alike frequently disappeared along the frontier.
    Swanson-Pierce continued. "As you can imagine, we returned to a hero's welcome. There were medals and promotions all around."
    "I trust you weren't left out," McCade said dryly.
    "No I wasn't," the other man replied evenly. "However, Bridger was.
    Oh, he received the Imperial Star all right. It isn't every day a commander personally leads a boarding party, and then wounded, returns to command his ship for the rest of the battle. Usually such a man could expect automatic promotion to admiral. But not Bridger. Nothing was ever said officially of course, but it was whispered that Bridger was too unstable, too fixated on pirates, for promotion." Swanson Pierce stopped pacing long enough to remove an invisible piece of lint from the left sleeve of his immaculate uniform before dropping into his chair.
    "About the same time, Bridger became more and more outspoken