More than a day before:
Sam woke up. Sunlight filtered through the bedroom curtains as he yawned and stectehed in bed. He was in no hurry to get up until he remembered that his dad was home and had promised to take him to the toy store today. He sprang out of bed and scampered toward the door in his pajamas. He smelled pancakes cooking in the kitchen and grinned in anticipation. He loved pancakes—and so did his dad. Yet when he rushed into the kitchen, expecting to find both his parents, he found only his mother cooking over a griddle. Confused, he looked around, but his dad was nowhere to be seen. He noticed there were only two place settings laid out at the kitchen table. He knew what that meant.

But he promised, Sam thought. He said he would still be here in the morning when I got up!

His mother heard him come in. She turned away from the stove to greet him. She gazed down at him sadly, forcing a smile.

"It's okay, babe," she said gently, "He'll be back soon."

Sam didn't understand. Had the Navy called Dad back already? He was supposed to be home for two weeks, not just one night!

His mom turned off the stove to comfort him. She knelt down and hugged him as she tried to explain why Dad was gone again.

"His daddy needed help."

Now:
The sun rose over the ruined base. Black smoke rose from the rubble, darkening the sky. Emergency crews had begun the grisly process of carting away the remains of the deceased. Helicopters circled overhead, observing the devastation below. Survivors were being carried away on stretchers. Hiccup wandered directionlessly through the ruins, ignored and forgotten amidst the disaster scene. He stumbled clumsily over the rubble, attempting to stay out of the way of the emergency crews. He'd been searching all night for his father without any luck. For all he knew, Stoick was still buried beneath the derbis. Exhausted and sore, he stubbornly worked his way down row after row of casualties. Worried and worn out, he almost walked by his dad without recognizing him, but then he spotted Stoick on a gurney, surrounded by harried nurses and medics, fighting to keep the injured man alive.

"Dad!"

Hiccup rushed toward, trying to squeeze past the doctors and nurses, who refused to let him through. He peered anxiously over the shoulders of the busy medics, hoping that he hadn't found his father just in time to see him die. That would be too cruel. Stoick's eyes fluttered at the sound of Hiccup's voice. He squinted through a fog of pain at his son.

Not far away, Alvin also wandered through the ruins. His clothing was torn and rumpled. He and Heather had barely escaped the crow's nest before it had crashed to the ground, but many others had not been so lucky. He watched grimly as Mulch was zipped into a bag.

"Dr. Hamil!"

Alvin turned to see a U.S. Navy officer approaching him, accompanied by Heather and a Japan Self-Defense Force captain. A helicopter was revving up behind them, it's rotors stirring up the already dusty air.

"Captain Paul Savage," the American officer introduced himself, shouting to be heard over the 'coprer's spinning rotors.

"Tactical authority of this situation has been accorded to Admiral Mildew, Commander, US Naval Forces, Seventh Fleet, part of a joint task force. I'm told your organization has situational awareness of our unidentified organism?"

Alvin nodded.

"Then I'm going to have to ask you to join me," Savage said. He glanced around at the surrounding bedlam. "Are there any other personnel you need?"

Alvin considered the question. There was Heather of course; that went without saying. He noticed that Stoick Haddock, was lying injured on a gurney nearby. A young American, whom Alvin assumed to be Stoick's son, Hiccup, was looking on anxiously as paramedics scrambled to stabilize his father's condition. Alvin recalle the data that had even confiscated from Stoick. Alvin had made sure that the disks and charts survived the disaster, but, now more than ever, he wanted to know everything the trespassing engineer knew about the nuclear disaster fifteen years ago. He pointed decisively at Haddock and son.

"Them."