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He liked Antarctica.
At least, that's what he told himself, and everyone who asked why he was here, which was mostly civilians. The civies (who seemed to think the cold was worse than a hundred and twenty-five degrees and getting shot at) looked at him like he was deranged and left him alone.
The largest group of other military people here – the ones who'd been working for the research project for a while – ignored and excluded newcomers as a general policy, although they weren't assholes about it, much. He welcomed it, really, since the alternative was the other newbies, who looked at him sidelong and traded knowing glances and the only ones who asked why he was here were the juniors, who were soon put straight by their seniors.
That's Shep, they'd say, not quietly enough that he couldn't hear, and Grade-A fuck-up, surprised he hasn't been discharged. And Stay away from that one if you ever want a career again.
That happened every few months, as they traded out the other pilots and temporary support after they'd been suitably punished for their supposedly lesser crimes, and he stayed to face the raised eyebrows of the next bunch. After the first changeover he learned to book a couple days of leave after new arrivals, so he could get shitfaced drunk in his room without breaking the 12-hour bottle-to-throttle rules – not that he couldn't fly with leftover drunk and a nasty hangover, but it sucked.
He got drunk because the alternative was walking up to one of those smug assholes, who probably got sent to Antarctica for fucking the wrong General's daughter, and breaking as many of his bones as he could before they dragged him away. Because even if he liked it here, the bitter taste in his mouth when he thought of Holland and going back for him being compared to the guy who was sent here for buzzing the base-commander's house and taking the shingles off it...it made him want to hurt people. Or pick a fight with one of the Marines (and why Marines, anyways?) to get himself hurt – but that kind of hurt would take him off flight duty. So he drank, instead. And he booked leave, to stay within the regs.
Because he really, really didn't want to get booted, because...because even with being sent to Antarctica to be looked down on by the Lieutenant who fucked her CO next to an active runway and the Corporal who attacked a clerk for not signing off on booze as a valid travel expense, even with docked pay and being consigned to a jumped-up civilian helicopter (no more Black Hawk speed, no more Apache firepower), even with everything, he still, just. Even getting drunk on a regular basis, which made him sick in more ways than one...he wanted this job. Besides, with his record, if he went Civie Street no one would hire him to fly anything ever again, and even if he got a desk job to pay for his own chopper and fuel, the thought made him die a little.
So he'd hang on here. Because despite all the shit, and the dinky little chopper they gave him to fly, it was still more than 200 miles an hour (on a good day, if he broke the rules) at five thousand feet, there was still the deep blue yonder (when it wasn't whiteout), there was still the dance of the controls, feeling the wind in the rotor blades. It was still flying.
Being one of three pilots at McMurdo authorised to fly into the radar-blackout, top-secret hush-hush, be-vewwy-vewwy-kwiet "science research facilities" (yeah right) meant he got to fly over some of the most beautifully stark terrain he'd ever seen, handle some of the worst weather conditions he'd ever experienced (which included the sudden storm that equally suddenly spawned a tornado back in Texas, a big fuck you to the weather observation station for that one). It was good flying, and if he wasn't ferrying some scientist or top-brass general or something with FRAGILE written all over it, he could fuck around a little on the way, just to keep his hand in. Just in case they ever "rehabilitated" him.
Yeah, right. But he had to keep hoping. Had to keep flying. Had to remember that he was not flying something with military tolerances, and the McMurdo AVN Techs would probably report him if he overstressed the bird in Sky Clear conditions.