Secret of the Dark Island/1

General Harold Stuart sat in his office, looking over a mound of paperwork. "Let's see here," he said, picking up the paper off the top. "More recruits needed in Iraq? Yeah, we'll get 'em. Boy, I'm sure glad we got that virus mess cleaned up, or the room would be full of these blasted papers!" He sorted through the mess, attempting to organize the pile, when suddenly his eye caught a paper near the bottom of the pile. "What the heck is this?" he wondered. He picked it up and read the heading.

The Dark Island Incident

He scratched his head. "The Dark Island?" he said. "I don't seem to recall...wait a minute. Wasn't that the sight of one of our experiments?" He racked his brain, repeating the word "Dark Island" over and over in an attempt to recall the experiment. "Oh yeah, I think it was a nuclear experiment! We were trying to create power using nuclear fusion. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I think that was the last time we tried that."

Suddenly, his radio buzzed. He growled and picked it up. "YES??" he barked. "Marone? Don't you realize how busy I am???"

"Sorry, sir," said Captain Bill Marone, "But there's trouble!"

Stuart sighed and said, "There always is."

"This is urgent, sir!" Marone urged. "Something's happened to the Harpers! We just flew over the ranger's cabin to check on them, and it was in ruins!"

Stuart suddenly sat up. "If it was the Alliance..."

"No sir, it wasn't them. They couldn't have done that. Besides, we've got the dangerous ones in prison to cool off. This was some kind of..."

Stuart cursed. "I thought we'd taken care of those were-creatures! Don't tell me they're back to their doggone rampages again!"

"No sir," said Marone. "Judging from the footprints we found."