All You Need Is Kill

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.

The muscles in my arms started to tremble. Then, purposefully, she walked away. Somehow she’d heard my prayer, making a ninety-degree turn right in front of me and heading toward the brigadier general where he sat under the tent. She snapped a perfunctory salute. Not so sloppy as to be insulting, but not so stiff you could hear anything cracking, either. A fitting salute for the Full Metal Bitch.

The brigadier general cast a doubtful glance at Rita. Rita was a sergeant major. In the military hierarchy, the difference between a brigadier general and a sergeant major was about the same as the difference between a four-course meal at a snooty restaurant and an all-you-can-eat buffet. Recruits like me were strictly fast food, complete with an oversized side of fries. But it wasn’t that simple. It never was. Rita was U.S. military, the linchpin of the upcoming operation, and one of the most important soldiers on the face of the planet. Rank aside, it was hard to say which one of them really held more power.

Rita stood in silence. The brigadier general was the first to speak.

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“Sir, would it be possible for me to join the PT, sir.”

The same high voice from my dream, speaking in perfectly intoned Burst.

“You have a major operation coming up tomorrow.”

“So do they, sir. My squad has never participated in this form of PT, sir. I believe my participation could be vital in ensuring the successful coordination and execution of tomorrow’s joint operation.”

The general was at a loss for words. The U.S. Special Forces around the field started to whoop and cheer.

“Request permission to participate in the PT, sir,” she said.

“Granted.”

“Sir, thank you, sir!”

She flashed a quick salute. Doing an about-face, she slipped among the rows of men staring intently into the ground.

She chose a spot beside me and started her iso push-up. I could feel the heat coming off her body through the chilly air between us.

I didn’t move. Rita didn’t move. The sun hung high in the sky, showering its rays over us, slowly roasting our skin. A drop of sweat formed in my armpit, then traced its way slowly to the ground. Sweat had started to bead on Rita’s skin too. Fuck! I felt like a chicken crammed into the same oven as the Christmas turkey.

Rita’s lips made the subtlest of movements. A low voice only I could hear.

“Do I have something on my face?”

“What?”

“You’ve been staring at me for a while now.”

“Me? No.”

“I thought maybe there was a laser bead on my forehead.”

“Sorry. There wasn’t-it’s nothing.”

“Oh. All right.”

“Shit-for-brains Kiriya! You’re slipping!” the lieutenant barked. I quickly extended my arm back into position. Beside me, Rita Vrataski, with the disinterested expression of someone who’d never had a need for human contact her entire life, continued her iso push-up.

PT ended less than an hour later. The general, the taste of bile in his mouth forgotten, returned to the barracks without further instructions. The 17th Company had spent a productive pre-battle afternoon.