Useless firing ceased when men forgot what they were doing, pushed into the ground with the force of a giant hand slapping recalcitrant children.

Leaves and branches fell from the trees in a slow patter of solid rain.

The carnage in the gully caught their attention, and they stood up to peer into the dark depression, wondering what it was they were looking at and why some men were dead.

Automatically, they assumed they had been in a fight. They assumed they should remain quiet because they could not remember if the fight was over. They assumed they had been a team, and they assumed the other man knew what he was doing.

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In an odd, jerking fashion, they oriented themselves to the light that was coming from the other side of the stand of trees; the men acting as if they had just survived a near explosion that had left them numb of mind and body.

They regained their coordination as they walked into the woods and slowly acted like men in a battle, crouching and weaving from tree to tree. They watched for their neighbor and maintained proximity to the men they did not know, drawing comfort from the idea they were not alone.

Unwittingly, the aliens had created the means to their own defeat.