I couldn’t take my eyes off the line of her hair-she wore it short-as it bobbed in the wind. There was a graceful balance to her features. You might even have called her beautiful. She had a thin nose, a sharp chin. Her neck was long and white where most Jacket jockeys didn’t even have necks. Her chest, however, was completely flat, at odds with the images of Caucasian women you saw plastered on the walls of every barracks cell. Not that it bothered me.

Whoever had looked at her and thought up the name Full Metal Bitch needed to have his head checked. She was closer to a puppy than a bitch. I suppose even in a litter of pit bulls there’s room for one sweet one in the bunch.

If, in my dream, the shell of that red Jacket had popped open and she’d climbed out, I would have shit my bunk. I’d seen her face and Jacket plenty on the news feeds, but they never gave you a good idea of what she really looked like in person. I had always pictured Rita Vrataski as tall and ruthless, with a knockout body and an air of total self-confidence.

Then our eyes met.

I looked away immediately, but it was already too late. She started walking toward me. She moved with purpose, one foot planted firmly on the ground before the other moved-a relentless, unstoppable force. But her steps were small, the net result being a harried, flustered gait. I’m not sure I’d ever seen anyone walk quite like that before.

C’mon, don’t do this to me. I can’t even move. Give a guy a break and get lost, would ya? Go on. Get!

Rita stopped.