The morning salvo, arriving at exactly 7:00 AM as always, tore up the ground ten feet from the previous day's shots. Ten feet closer to their encampment.

The aliens were sending a message.

They really weren't the aliens, though. Planet 147 was their planet. The "Earthlings" were the aliens.

Captain Joseph Stiles watched with disgust as the dust from the explosions started to settle along with assorted body parts. Arms, legs, torsos; these people…, no, these creatures didn't bury their dead, they just left them lay wherever they died.

And in this planet's dry climate, it took a long time for the "ashes to ashes to ashes, dust to dust" to occur.

But they weren't complete savages. They had some kind of political structure running things and they practiced a religion of sorts. They used a complex language that was difficult to translate into any of Earth's languages. But they'd learned enough English to communicate their wishes.

"Everything okay, Sir?"

"Yeah, Corporal. But they're getting closer."

In addition to the Captain, the expedition was made up of four scientists, two navigators, and six military personnel. The mission was scheduled to be for one calendar year. Four months out, four months of exploration of the planet, and then four months back.

Due to space restrictions, only enough food and water for thirteen months had been allotted. A month's wiggle room.

But the ship had developed engine problems. Both navigators said it was not advisable to take off for Earth until they were sure they had the problems solved.

The scientists had met with the local big-wigs to ty to explain that they would be leaving as soon as they could. The locals seemed to think it more likely that this group was the vanguard of a future takeover of their planet.

The scientists were told to get out or else.

"You must leave today. Now, if possible," said the young female to Corporal Billy Connors. "If you don't go, you will surely die."

"But if we leave before the navigators say the ship's ready, we'll surely die too," the Corporal answered.

Corporal Connors had been having conversations with Sasha for the last couple of weeks. Nothing more than talk so far, but Connors had developed a crush on her. He was twenty years old, a long way from home, and might never get back to Kansas City.

"I must go," Sasha said. "I may not ever see you again. We are going to the mountains tonight until after the rains."

The next morning there were no shells sent toward the encampment.

"Now that's odd," mumbled Captain Stiles after the scheduled 7:00 AM bombardment had failed to occur.

"Sir, if I may," said Corporal Connors.

"Speak up, Connors."

"Well, last night, Sasha, one of the native girls, told me —"

"You know my orders about fraternizing with the natives, Connors."

"Yes, Sir. We've just been talking. That's all. No fraternizing, Sir."

"Oh, jeezus pleezus," the Captain said, shaking his head.

"Sasha said we had to leave immediately or we'd all die."

"They've been saying that for weeks. But we have to get the ship fixed to make the trip back. Or we'll all die, Connors, on the way back."

"I told her that, Sir. And then she said they were all heading out last night to go to the mountains until after the rains."

"'Until after the rains' was what she said? It doesn't rain here, Connors," said Captain Stiles impatiently.

"I'm just telling you what she said, Sir."

Dr. Matthew Silverstein knocked on the door frame of the Captain's hut.

"Got a minute, Sir?"

"Sure, Matt. What's up?"

"Well, we haven't been monitoring weather conditions much since we landed because it's always been the same. Hot and dry. Day and night. But this morning we noticed the barometer had dropped overnight and is continuing to drop. On Earth, that would mean a storm is coming."

"A rain storm?"

"Seems that way."

"Hmmm."

"I guess it's gotta rain here sometime, right? I mean, they must have water tables underground for their wells —"

"Corporal Connors heard from one of the natives last night that they were all going up into the mountains because it was gonna rain. She said if we didn't leave right away before it rained, we'd all die."

"Same ol' song and dance? Leave or die?"

"That's what I thought," said the Captain. "But did ya notice there was no shelling this morning?"

"Yeah, I did. Thought maybe they'd given it up."

"Have everybody meet at the ship in a half hour, will ya? We've gotta do some brainstorming."

"Okay, listen up. Something weird's going on. There may be a rain storm coming, and the natives have all left for the mountains until it passes. That could mean that the storm may be of dangerous proportions…., Hey, where's Connors?"

Everybody except Butler, another corporal, looked around the room. Butler stared down at his hands as if they held the answer to Connors' whereabouts.

"Butler," said the Captain. "You know something?"

Butler squirmed in his seat. "Yessir. I think…. maybe…."

"Spit it out, Corporal. Where's Connors?"

"This morning after breakfast he put some stuff in a backpack and said he was gonna go up into the mountains. It was like he was…. I don't know, hypnotized, or somethin'. I thought he was kiddin', but then he walked out and headed for those mountains, saying something about how it was gonna rain."

"And you didn't think that was something you should report?"

"I should have, Sir. But I'm not a squealer. It's just hard to know when —"

A loud klaxon alarm sounded throughout the ship. A mechanical voice spoke over the alarm. "Attention: Outside perimeter has been breached. Repeat: Outside perimeter has been breached……"

This went on until First Lieutenant Anthony Fulton entered the code to end both the klaxon and the message.

"Thank you, Tony. Take your remaining squad out and see what set that off. It may be nothing, but it may be part of this morning's unusual activities."

"Got it, Sir."

The squad went out and almost stumbled over the two bodies that lay just outside the ship's entrance. It was Connors and Sasha, the female native he'd been friendly with recently. They'd been tied together in a lover's embrace and both had had their throats cut.

"Holy shit," said Lieutenant Fulton.

"Look there, Lieutenant. Those three walking away."

"Hey, you, three! Stop!" Fulton shouted.

The three showed no sign of hearing the command and kept walking.

Fulton fired a warning shot over their heads, but they didn't alter their progress toward the mountains.

Corporal Susan St. Clair opened fire and shot all three in the back from forty yards away.

"St. Clair! What the hell are you doing?"

"Connors was one of ours, Lieutenant! I liked Connors! Those assholes killed him!"

Fulton sighed. "Okay. Okay. I get it. Let's go back in and report."

The first clouds the Earthlings had seen since landing were much like Earth's cumulonimbus clouds, rising up over the mountains in what may have been west.

Ominous was the word that came to mind as Captain Stiles watched their approach.

"How soon could we get this tub in the air?" he asked Chief Navigator, Anne Wilson.

"You mean go home, Sir?"

"No, just up high enough to avoid that storm and its aftermath, whatever that may be. Off the planet for a week, maybe?"

"We could give it a try tonight. No promises, though."

"Then do it."

It turned out that "tonight" was not soon enough. The storm picked up speed later in the afternoon and bombarded the entire encampment with torrential rains. Camp was abandoned and everybody made for the ship in the downpour.

The normally dry, packed ground became a quagmire. A quagmire that was alive. Alive with pieces of the dead that had accumulated since the last rain, whenever that had been.

Body parts joined together to make almost whole bodies with clutching hands that grabbed at the crew as they slogged almost knee deep through the vile alien stew.

If they'd been true zombies, head shots would've dispatched them. But these alien non-dead didn't always have heads, just clutching hands, sometimes three or four arms working in unison on one body.

The group ran for their lives. The ship was just fifty yards from the camp, but that was too far for Fulton and St. Clair. They went down screaming, and the rest couldn't stop to help them.

The Captain had stayed with the ship and ordered Chief Navigator Wilson to take off as soon as the last of the team was aboard.

"We can take off, but I don't know how long we can stay aloft," said Wilson.

"Just get us up out of this damn swamp," the Captain said. "We'll worry about later when later happens."

Miraculously, in only three days, the navigators deemed the ship ready to limp back to Earth.

"The ship may make it, but I don't know about the rest of us," said Wilson.

"We're three less going back than we were coming here," said Captain Stiles. "I know that's harsh, but it might mean we'll have enough food to make it home."

"We've got enough water. All of our tanks were filled before that awful storm. I'll still have trouble drinking it, though. Even if it got filtered as it went into the water tables.

"Yeah, just thinking about the make-up of that filtration system will probably give us all nightmares."

A week later the real nightmares began. Second Lieutenant James attacked Corporal Butler, tearing out his throat and drinking the blood that spurted from the artery.

Apparently driven to a frenzy by the scene, one of the other corporals, Johnnie Simpson, jumped onto those two and started biting.

The Captain realized what was happening to his crew and locked himself in his quarters. He also felt the effects of the tainted water and knew what his fate was to be.

Taking a can of spray paint from his locker, he sprayed large lettering on one of his walls.

DO NOT EVER SEND ANY RETURN SHIPS TO PLANET 147

IT IS A DEATH TRAP

He broke the nozzle off of the spray can because something was telling him to paint over the message to conceal it.

Captain Stiles started to cry. He hadn't cried since he was a kid.

Struggling with his diminishing sanity, Captain Stiles opened up the ship's log to the last entry.

"The rain has started. We don't yet know why the natives have left for the mountains."

Using his passcode, he overrode that entry and posted:

"The rain has started. We now know why the natives have fled to the mountains. I feel my mind is no longer my own and do not trust it to make more entries. My trusty Glock will prevent me from making the situation worse than it is. As the lettering on the wall says, stay clear of Planet 147."

The ship had been set on automatic pilot by the navigators as soon as they'd left Planet 147's system. It would probably make it back to Earth.

In four months, the carnage inside the ship and the Captain's messages should be warning enough so that a return trip to Planet 147 would never occur.

It should be enough, but it probably won't stop the powers that be.

History has shown nothing ever stops them from doing stupid things.

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