Carnifex

14/6/467 AC, Xamar, Abdulahi's Headquarters

The pirate chief's smile grew into a chuckle as he watched three of his boats closing on the lone freighter. He watched on a laptop's screen, the laptop hooked into the receiver provided to him by those space-faring infidels overhead.

Such a useful toy it was, that receiver. It was not only capable of giving him the locations of any naval vessels that might interfere with his operations, it gave him the precise locations of potential targets and identified—though this was trickier—ships belongs to companies that were already paying the Jizya. It would never do to seize those who paid to avoid attack unless, of course, those payments were late.

Abdulahi panned back, to embrace a broader ocean area. At this scale he could make out the two infidel carrier groups, which he thought of as "the greater and the lesser infidels," both the distinctive flat tops and their smaller escorts. He could close the view in, also, to watch the take offs and landings of their aircraft. That, however, usually cut off the view of the escorts unless they happened to be very close to the carriers.

Recentering the cursor on the waters between the target freighter and where his own boats had to be, Abdulahi clicked to lower the scale to where he could just make out his vessels. The two carrier groups disappeared off to the sides of the screen.

One might have thought that the pirate lord would have paid more attention to the threat to his operations, rather than the targets. But there was emotional satisfaction in watching the targets taken. The threat? Well, he knew the rules of engagement as well as the captains and crews of the warships. The FSN wasn't allowed to be a threat until it was too late and the others, the infidel mercenaries, were not nearly as capable and were, moreover, being watched by the space-faring infidels who would warn him if the mercenaries got into a position to interfere.