Digging out from under a tangled pile of branches and leaves, Casey used a sapling to help his pain wracked body to its feet and surveyed the remains of the spacecraft.

Pieces of glowing metal littered the gully where the ship had stood, the light dying from the wreckage as he watched. Small gouts of flame dotted the area, lighting the crater dug into the bottom of the gully.

Casey smiled with a certain satisfaction. The little bastards were gone. Now all he had to do was get the actors out of the area.

“What the hell did you do?” A man asked from behind the soldier.

“House cleaning,” Casey replied as he faced the man who had inadvertently helped him so much. He extended his hand. “I owe you for helping me.”

John accepted the handshake but shrugged off the compliment while looking at the gully and the damage done to the ground. “It wasn’t a hard shot.”

A woman walked into sight behind the actor and Casey shook his head in amazement. This actor had done more tonight than his team of experts while surviving where men who should have been able to defeat the aliens had died. The luck of a beginner was an amazing thing to behold. Casey opened his mouth to repeat his compliment when a heavy weight descended on his shoulders.

The actors bent under the invisible yoke as well and in the dying light, he could see the grimaces of pain that had to be reflected on his own face.

Stark light and shifting shadows raced through the trees towards the gully while soundlessly a huge glowing UFO passed over the trees. They looked up, not in amazement, but in fear of the next phase of the alien attack.

Casey turned away and shielded his eyes with his arm as the UFO lanced an incredibly bright light into the gully on the remains of the first UFO. The plywood construct burst into flames at the touch of the light.

This had to be a response to the destruction of the UFO. Casey imagined the alien he had killed had somehow signaled the loss of control for its mission and this was the reply, exactly as he would have set up a mission; with a backup.

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They would have to pacify the area before they landed to ensure the safety of the landing zone. The memory of the wave of air that had hurt him immediately came to his mind.

“Come on,” Casey shouted and leaped into the gully as the light passed into the woods between the gully and the house. He stumbled, his leg folding under, as Casey landed in the gully.

The actors landed on either side and lifted him to his feet. He could see the UFO holding a position he assumed was near the house. “Run,” he shouted.

They ran; following Casey as he limped past the burning junk that had been the original UFO for the exercise. He realized what a fool’s errand the entire mission had been from the start. It had been a setup. Turner would never have countenanced a mission that involved actual contact with aliens. Casey doubted Turner even knew aliens existed. Like the rest of them, Turner was probably a victim of subterfuge, not that the realization helped as Casey looked up to see the huge UFO descending below the trees. Any time now, they would fire the weapon.

He headed for the edge of the gully where they could take shelter under the lee of dirt to weather the attack; shelter had worked once and it would have to serve again.

Twenty feet from the dirt wall, he heard the aliens fire the weapon. It was the same rustling and breaking of limbs he had heard earlier. Casey thought he heard the slap of the air against the house and felt the first tentative wisp of wind against his face.

They collapsed against the dirt as the pulse of air shook through the trees above the gully and lashed hard at the bare ground, raising a cloud of dust and ashes.

Crushed against the ground, Casey tried to breathe. They had made it to cover in time. This wave felt less severe than its predecessor did, with his body weathering the storm with ease. Casey laughed. He looked at the frightened faces of the actors and smiled in reassurance.

The burning fake UFO disintegrated in a spray of wood and flames, then the pressure wave was gone and the trees settling.

“Come on,” Casey shouted, uncertain if the actors could hear him. “I have a blind in the woods where we can see what’s happening.”

They ran south in the gully to a point where the wall of earth was low enough to climb. He motioned the actors up, then waited for them to help him up the wall.

The light from the UFO set the woods into a riotous confusion of shadows, changing the scenery from his memory of the woods while dark. Casey knew his way to the blind with the assurance of a man who had felt his way from one end of the woods to the other. They worked their way steadily towards the house until he saw the fallen tree.

Silently, he guided the actors into the blind, then entered and covered them with the leaves that lay thick on the ground. Continuing the silence, he claimed the weapons from the actors and set three of the guns up for silencers.

Unknowingly, Casey continued to smile as he worked, his thoughts on the surprise the aliens would receive when they encountered three snipers instead of one.