The Pull

The optical tracker on Vexa Tarn's panoramic console replayed the last three seconds of Strike Unit Six over and over in a glowing amber wireframe.

The fifty-meter gunmetal corvette with the fresh slate patch along its starboard belt hung in the middle of her holographic projector. 

…On the loop it snapped through a violent zero-radius pitch, swung its dorsal turret onto an impossible angle and gutted her third ship's reactor with four rail-slugs while the poor fool was still dangling on the end of a harpoon line.

Three ships… Her three ships, gone in under four minutes…

Vexa sat with her long bare pink legs crossed lazily over the edge of the flight console, swinging her left foot in slow circles.