Commander Ferrari was the first Allied General to arrive at the scene. His helicopter landed just inside the plant’s outer wall at the front entrance. As he disembarked, he saw the wreckage of three armored personnel carriers. Two had been shot up. A third had been blown up. Ghoul bodies were strewn about. Their armor was dented from the many bullet impacts. Their faces were crushed. The faces were contorted, unnatural, and disturbing to begin with. Most of them had a skeletal hole where a nose should be. Their leathery skin hung loose like a drape over their gaunt jowls.

Everything lay in its resting place. The soldiers had ensured that the ghouls would stay down, but had otherwise, left the scene undisturbed. They warily waited for orders. They mourned their fallen comrades. Many were being taken away in a flashing ambulance. The guard towers were obliterated. The pavement was streaked with electric burn marks. Craters were strewn throughout the courtyard, created by stray particle beams. Commander Ferrari walked gingerly through the wreckage, ignoring the soldiers and their emotionless eyes.

Ferrari inspected first the bullet-ridden vehicles, but found nothing new or interesting inside. Then, he began sifting through the wreckage of the exploded vehicle.

“Did these men have rockets?” He asked an aide.

The aide sprinted over to the huddled soldiers and security guards. Then, he sprinted back.

“No sir, none of them had rockets.”

“Hrm, must have been grenades.” Ferrari said absentmindedly.

He saw something glimmer in the sunlight. He bent his knees and lifted a large piece of shrapnel that used to be a door.

“What do we have here?” He said, smiling.

His aides said nothing.

Beneath the wreckage lay a suit of shining armor laced with gold. It would only have fit a giant. A golden ankh was emblazoned on the front. The heat from the explosion had warped the left shoulderguard. One of the spikes sticking out of the shoulderplate had the tip broken off. But the armor was otherwise intact. Ferrari ran his fingers over it.

“It’s heavy.” He said.

His aides stood by silently.

On closer inspection, he noticed carvings in the armor plates. There were patterns visible on the surface. They depicted scenes of war and worship. He flipped over one of the vambraces and found more carving on the inside. This carving was different. It was not done by an artist. It was etched in crudely. It looked like planets and a temple. He checked the inside of the other pieces and found nothing. Then he lifted the vambrace in both hands. It was very heavy.

“Get me a duffle bag.” He told an aide.

The aide sprinted back to the helicopter and returned with a bag. Ferrari bagged the vambrace first, and then masked it by filling the rest of the bag with wreckage.

“Take that to the copter. We’re taking it with us.”

As the aide ran off with the heavy duffle bag lashed to his back, Ferrari heard the whirl of another helicopter’s blades. It landed and General Seaberg stepped out.

“Ferrari! I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see that you beat everyone.” Came the grizzled voice of the old veteran.

“Seaberg.” Ferrari greeted him. “Come have a look at this, Ghaelvord’s armor.”

“Well, dip me in napalm. You think that old bastard was in there?”

“There’s no body, but just look at this vehicle.”

“Not much left.”

“And what is left is burnt beyond recognition.”

“We can get a forensic team in.”

“I can already tell you that there are body parts all over this place, but are any of them Ghaelvord’s?”

“I doubt we’ll ever know.” Said Seaberg. “I suppose if he gives another speech, then we’ll know it wasn’t him.”

“If he gives another speech…” Ferrari said. “Genoa’s been out of power for a long time. I’m starting to think that he was running out of generators.”

“Do we even know if he needs them?”

“I think he does. I think he needs power to maintain the cloud, even if they are living in the dark the rest of the time.”

“You’re all right Ferrari. I can see why they promoted you. You got anything else for me before I do my own snooping about?”

“No, General. Make yourself at home.”

The grizzled veteran looked out at the warzone.

“I am.”

• • •

Back on the Levitano, Ferrari sat in his dark conference room. Orange blinking lights lit his face intermittently. Many of the monitors were on standby mode, not quite off, but not quite on. On the large monitor in the middle, he watched the security tapes sent over by the French.

“Who are you mystery man? What move comes next in our game?” He asked the screen rhetorically.

On the screen, he watched as a man dressed in dark fatigues wearing a balaclava fired a shoulder-held, rocket-propelled grenade. The explosive warhead hit the front armored personnel carrier and decimated it. Then, the door opened and his Chief Technician came in.

“Did you figure out where he came from?” The tech asked.

“No. I’ve watched every tape from every angle. The first time he is seen; he is walking around the west reactor cone. Here is the shot from the other side.”

“Is the screen smudged?”

“You mean there?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.” Ferrari scoffed at the image. “It looks like a mist.”

“Or smoke.”

“Smoke.” Ferrari repeated ponderously.

“Do you think he is dead, Commander?” The tech asked.

Ferrari watched the shot replay. The flame from the rocket lit up the man’s eyes. They seemed to glimmer. Ferrari imagined the man smiling a haughty smile beneath his face mask.

“No, I do not think he is dead. He knows it. He knows that we know. He knows that we have no proof. He knows that the public will never see these tapes. He knows that his death will become conventional wisdom. He knows that his life will be the realm of conspiracy theorists.”

“Does that mean it’s over?” The tech asked.

Ferrari thought about that, “I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘over.’”

At that, the tech laughed, “You’ll hunt him?”

Ferrari grinned, “Like a fox.”

At that, the door opened again and the CIO entered. The tech and the CIO sat down and pulled tablet computers from their briefcases. While they prepared for the meeting, Ferrari watched the monitors displaying the drone readings. The cloud was receding. It was slow, but sure.

“The cloud continues to recede at a steady pace.” The CIO said. “If the pace continues, then Arenzano will be naked in a week. With targeted long-range artillery and air support, we should be able to take the city back with a reasonably low casualty rate.”

“Will the pace continue?” Ferrari asked.

“We expect it will speed up actually. We could move on Arenzano in four days. We could move on Genoa in less than two weeks.”

“They are running out of power.” Ferrari added.

“They had generators and some fossil fuels, but they’ve been off the grid for a long time now. We do not know how the ray cannons or the hovercraft are fueled, but at this point, we are assuming that it is non-renewable and that they are running out of it.”

“There may be an attack out of desperation as the power runs out. Make sure the defenses do not get slack as we prep for invasion.”

“Yes sir. Sir, Ihave to ask. Is he dead?” The CIO asked.

The CIO braced for an excoriation. It was not his job to ask questions. It was his job to give answers.

Instead, the Commander responded, “We were just discussing that. The firefight at the reactor was too close. Why didn’t they bring one more cannon? Or one more APC? Or more hovercraft?”

“Maybe they took what they could get during the Parma invasion. Maybe we took out most of their hovercraft when we sacked Parma?”

Ferrari doubted it.