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http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=extant-2014&episode=s01e02
Springfield! Springfield!
Extant (2014)
Extinct
Julie Gelineau: His process speeds are picking up.
John Woods: Uh, he's going to the Natural History Museum with his mom.
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/79701/Clancy_-_Red_Storm_Rising.txt
Tom Clancy
Red Storm Rising
18 – Polar Glory
KEFLAVIK, ICELAND
"Perfect weather," First Lieutenant Mike Edwards pronounced, looking up from the chart just off the facsimile machine. "We have this strong cold front due in from Canada in twenty to twenty-four hours. That'll bring a lot of rain with it, maybe an inch worth, but for all of today we have clear skies-less than two-tenths high clouds-and no precip. Surface winds west to southwest at fifteen to twenty knots. And lots of 'shine'" he concluded with a grin. The sun had risen for the last time nearly five weeks before, and wouldn't truly set for another five. They were so close to the North Pole here in Iceland that in summer the sun wandered in a lazy circle around the azure sky, dipping fractionally below the northwestern horizon but never truly setting. It was something that took getting used to.
"Fighter weather," agreed Lieutenant Colonel Bill Jeffers, commander of the 57th Fighter Interceptor squadron, the "Black Knights," most of whose F-15 Eagle interceptors were sitting in the open a bare hundred yards away. The pilots were in those fighters, waiting. They'd been waiting for ninety minutes now. Two hours before, they'd been warned of a large number of Soviet aircraft taking off from their tactical air bases on the Kola Peninsula, destination unknown.
Keflavik was always a busy place, but for the last week it had been a madhouse. The airport was a combination Navy and Air Force base and a busy international airport at which many airliners stopped to refuel.
The past week had seen this traffic supplemented by grim tactical fighters transiting from the United States and Canada to Europe, cargo aircraft transporting overloads of critical equipment, and airliners returning to America crowded with pale tourists and dependents of the military men who were now on the battle line. The same had happened to Keflavik. Three thousand wives and children had been evacuated. The base facility was cleared for action. If the Soviets kicked off the war that seemed to be springing from the ground like a new volcano, Keflavik was as ready as it could be.
"With your permission, Colonel, I want to check a few things at the tower. This forecast is pretty solid, for the next twelve hours anyway."
"Jet stream?" Colonel Jeffers looked up from the yard-square chart of isobars and wind-trees.
"Same place it's been all week, sir, no sign at all of a change."
"Okay, go ahead."
Edwards put on his cap and walked out the door. He wore a thin blue officer's jacket over his Marine-style fatigues, pleased that the Air Force was still pretty casual about dress codes. His jeep held the rest of his "battle gear," a .38 revolver and pistol belt, and the field jacket that went with the camouflage gear everybody had been issued three days before. They'd thought of everything, Edwards reflected as he started up the jeep for the quarter-mile drive to the tower. Even the flak jacket.
"Red Storm Rising"
Keflavik had to get hit, Edwards reminded himself. Everybody knew it, prepared for it, and then tried not to think about it. This most isolated of all NATO outposts on the western coast of Iceland was the barred gate to the North Atlantic. If Ivan wanted to fight a naval war, Iceland had to be neutralized. From Keflavik's four runways flew eighteen Eagle interceptors, nine sub-hunting P-3C Orions, and deadliest of all, three E-3A AWACS birds, the eyes of the fighters. Two were operating now; one was circling twenty miles northeast of Cape Fontur, the other directly over Ritstain, 150 miles north of Keflavik. This was most unusual. With only three AWACS birds available, keeping one constantly in the air was difficult enough. The commander of the Iceland defense forces was taking all of this very seriously. Edwards shrugged. If there really were Backfires bearing down on them, there was nothing else for him to do. He was the brand-new squadron meteorological officer, and he'd just given his weather report.
Edwards parked his jeep in an officer's slot next to the tower and decided to take his .38 with him. The lot was not fenced, and there was no telling if someone might want to "borrow" his handgun. The base was crawling with a company of Marines and another of Air Force police, all looking very nasty with their M-16 rifles and web belts festooned with grenades. He hoped they'd be careful with those. Late the next day, a whole Marine Amphibious Unit was due to arrive to beef up base security, something that should have been done a week earlier but had been delayed, partly because of the Icelandic sensitivity regarding large numbers of armed foreigners, but mainly due to the unreal speed with which this crisis had developed. He trotted up the outside stairs and found the tower's control room crowded with eight people rather than the usual five.
"Hi, Jerry," he said to the boss, Navy lieutenant Jerry Simon. The Icelandic civilian controllers who usually worked here were nowhere to be seen. Well, Edwards thought, there's no civilian traffic for them to control.
"Morning, Mike," was the response. The ongoing joke at Keflavik. It was 0315 hours local time. Morning. The sun was already up, glaring in at them from the northeast through roll-down shades inside of the tilted glass windows.
"Let's have an attitude check!" Edwards said as he walked over to his meteorological instruments.
"I hate this fucking place!" the tower crew answered at once.
"Let's have a positive attitude check."
"I positively hate this fucking place!"
"Let's have a negative attitude check."
"I don't like this fucking place!"
"Let's have a short attitude check."
"Fuckit!" Everyone had a good laugh. They needed it.
"Nice to see that we're all maintaining our equilibrium," Edwards observed. The short, scrawny officer had become instantly popular on his arrival two months earlier. A native of Eastpoint, Maine, and a graduate of the Air Force Academy, his glasses prevented him from flying. His diminutive size-five-six and a hundred twenty pounds-was not designed to command respect, but his infectious grin, ready supply of jokes, and recognized expertise at making sense of the confused North Atlantic weather patterns had combined to make him an acceptable companion for anyone at Keflavik. Everyone thought he would make one hell of a TV weatherman one day.
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 12:29 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Thursday 25 September 2014
