Carnifex

9/2/467 AC, Xamar

The tough part had been coming up with a single sailor from the Yamatan ship, Tojo Hidecki Maru, willing to beg for his life. Twenty-one of the twenty-two captives had simply glared at their captors, returning curses and spit for kicks and blows. Courage was perhaps the most notable trait for the Yamatans. With no other audience to their bravery, they endured for the sake of their ancestors.

One had been younger and weaker. After beating him mercilessly, tearing out his finger- and toenails, crushing his testicles, and applying flame to the soles of his feet, that Yamatan had been turned into a weeping, pleading caricature of a man. He begged for the camera now.

In mid-plea a single shot rang out. In the camera's view the sailor's head exploded in gory technicolor. The body flopped bonelessly to the tiled floor and twitched. The firer raised his rifle over his head and shouted, "Alahu Akbar!"

The camera shifted angle to the leader of a Xamari pirate band. The chief's head and face were covered. He spoke no Japanese and so made his announcement in English.

"You were warned. That was one. We hold another twenty-one of your sailors. Meet our just demands or those will also be killed at a rate of one per day, beginning tomorrow at sunrise. The rate—either of payment or of execution—will not change. If you pay us our just demand of twenty-two million FSD by this evening, the remaining twenty-one will be released unharmed. If you do not pay before twenty days have passed, it will cost you the same amount but all you will receive is the last man and the bodies of the other twenty-one. The choice is yours."

Within a few hours copies of the tape were on their way to Yamato . . . and al Iskandariya news.