Page 7 of Escaping my Dragon

While the captain expected us to follow him like good little soldiers, I waited instead on the tarmac, stretching while I ensured our gear got unloaded in its entirety from the comfortable plane and reloaded onto the C-17 that likely didn’t offer in-flight Wi-Fi. When the captain exited the military plane and glowered at me, I waved even as I continued to do my squats and side-to-side bends.

Once everything had been transferred and my muscles begged me to let them atrophy, I went up the ramp and paused at the top. It was worse than expected.

Joslyn gasped. “Where are we supposed to sit?”

The interior of the craft proved wide open, or would have been, if not for crates running up the middle. Our luggage had been added to the pile, and a pair of soldiers secured the cases with straps.

The captain heard Joslyn and pointed. “This craft is equipped with Globemaster seats. Unfold, sit, and strap in.”

The aforementioned seat lacked padding and led to me asking, “How long is the flight?”

“Five hours.”

“I take it there’s no drink or food service,” I grumbled as I snapped myself into the harness.

“You’ll be fed,” the captain promised with an ominous tone.

It turned out to not be as awful as expected. A warmish television dinner type thing. Also, once we took off, the captain gave us permission to move around if we wanted. Vernon, after he’d finished exploring, chose to stretch out across a few seats for a nap, whereas Joslyn flirted with some of the people travelling with us, or as she liked to call it, gathered intel.

Me, I pulled out my laptop and began chronicling our journey. Later, I’d polish the rambling thoughts into a script to read in a sound studio. Production would then splice some of Joslyn’s videos together and overlay my speech over it.

The captain sat beside me, a surprise since I’d expected him to ignore me until we landed.

“What exactly are your plans?” he asked, getting right to the point.

“To debunk some of the theories floating around about the South Pole.”

“Which is rather broad in scope. I mean, what exactly are you going to do? Just talk to people, or are you planning to also leave the station?”

“While interviewing will be part of the process, I also plan to visit some of the spots of contention.”

“Such as?”

I closed my laptop. “The supposed pyramid, for one.”

“It’s not an easy hike.”

“Wasn’t planning to walk. I was told someone could fly us to it.”

“Not sure why you’d bother. It’s just a snowy mountain.”

“With a shape that has been causing wild speculation. Don’t get me wrong, Captain, I don’t think there’s an actual manmade pyramid under the snow, but I need to prove that to my audience, which is why we’ll be utilizing radar and thermal imaging.”

“Why bother when it’s already been done? We have the data.”

“Data that the conspiracy theorists suspect might be false, hence why I have to acquire my own results.”

He said nothing for a moment before nodding. “Fair point. I can ensure you have that equipment on the helicopter.”

“Thank you.”

“Any other places you’re planning to visit?”

As I named them, the captain unbent a little, even snorting when I mentioned the Nazi theory floating around.

“Ain’t no Nazis,” he promised. “But there are penguins along the coasts. And seals. So many seals.”

Given he appeared in the mood to talk, I asked, “How long have you been stationed here?”