Farming Amongst the Clouds

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.

And as soon as they do, the observers in their towers would announce it and the cloud farmers would head up in their harvesters to start their work for the day, harvesting from said purple clouds.

Clarence opened his sleepy blue eyes when his boss put the call through to all harvester pilots to take off. He often napped in the cockpit of his small haul harvester before midnight. Saved time getting ready.

Smoothing his blonde hair out of his eyes, he quickly snapped through the pre-flight checks before donning his headset.

"This is Tennyson S5 taking off." Clarence said into the headset's microphone.

An artificial automated voice spoke. "Tennyson Farming group, this is CF Central. Your allotted farm target tonight is a Category B currently heading west at 10 knots. Good luck."

Clarence heard the chorus of replies from other members of the Tennyson group over the communications network. He added his own.

"Alright, everyone. This is Boss Tennyson again. The target is headed towards a high activity bank of mundane clouds further west, so I want everyone to get in between it and the target and harvest in a easterly direction. That way we'll get as much time as possible.... about three hours before we need to get clear. Area assignments when we rendezvous. Understood?" Marcus Tennyson's deep voice came through loud and clear.

"Affirmative." replied Clarence. He worked on his controls to get his harvester pointed in the right direction with best possible speed, zeroing in on the Boss' harvester signal as point of reference.

Luckily, they were heading up on a calm clear night with the full moon on display above. Piloting a cloud harvester was a tricky proposition at the best of times as it was dependent on instrumentation.

Cloud harvesters were airships with specialised harvesting equipment attached, so they were slow but stable craft as required for the job of vacuuming the red and blue crystallised shedding that forms as a purple cloud floats across the sky.

The crystallised shedding had become a valued commodity in both the fashion and food industries for the red shedding and medical and arcane esoteric industries for the blue. It was lucrative enough for the creation of the vocation of cloud farming and formation of farming cooperatives such as the Tennyson Farming group to which Clarence belonged.

From Clarence's take off point, it took fifteen minutes to rendezvous with the other harvesters to assemble ahead of the incoming cloud.

Marcus Tennyson quickly organised them into their octagonal formation with his command harvester in the middle.

Clarence was given the top left point of the octagon this time around and he, and the others, had just made to their respective position when the purple cloud engulfed them all.

With practiced hands, Clarence activated the main vacuum pumps on his airship and launched the two drone tugs, the relatively silent soon filled with whirring sounds as the pumps spooled into action.

Unlike normal clouds, the purple clouds pulls along whatever is within it hence the use of drone tugs, which help manoeuvre and keep the airship in place as required. They also pack extra sensors to give harvester operator additional information regarding the surrounding atmosphere as well as keep track of the proximity of other airships within the cloud.

Satisfied, Clarence kept his hands on the controls and his eyes on the information feed on his display, working his airship back and forth in his assigned space.

He and the others bantered, joked and played word games to stave off the inevitable boredom. The work was lucrative but was fairly dull once they positioned the harvester within the clouds There was only so much purple one could take.

"..... and that was the last time they decided to let elephants try red infused bananas." said Clarence with a grin. He was rewarded with laughter over the comms network.

”Good one, Clarence.” said the pilot of Tennyson S8, his best friend, Lucas.

The grin faded when his attention was drawn to the atmospheric data coming from the drones.

The atmosphere pressure was dropping and it had gotten colder. Likely outcome was rain cloud formation.

A harvester pilot’s greatest worry is the presence of rain clouds. As everyone knows, collision of clouds cause thunder and lightning, but it’s worse when mundane clouds collide with the purple clouds.

When that happens, the lightning generated forks multiple times as it traverses the purple cloud, while the thunder is echoed into a repeating chorus.

From the ground, it’s a spectacular show but within the cloud while in a harvester, it becomes a noisy, strobe lit hell only made bearable by specialised equipment.

Fearing this possibility, Clarence donned his storm-haz helmet, while he broadcasted over the comm. “Potential cloud formation…. Repeat potential cloud formation.”

He was greeted with expletives, even Marcus swore, as he also launched the weather drone straight up.

Focussing on the comm network, all he heard was Marcus“…… how did we miss…. what do you mean the atmospheric reader was rebooting? ….. Ah hell, everyone…. standard storm get up….. anyone has eyes out?”

Clarence was working his equipment, activating his white noise generators while getting the drone tugs to unspool their lightning rods, all protective measures against lightning and thunder, while watching the weather drone’s visual feed for the moment it exited the purple cloud.

“Weather drone up and …..” What Clarence saw elicited an expletive of his own. “Thunderhead, repeat thunderhead….. Brace for strike.”

If there were any replies, it was lost in the resulting riot of light and sound. Fortunately, the storm-haz helmet worked as advertised, mollifying the assault on eyes and ears to something tolerable. That said, Clarence felt the reverberations of the thunder in his bones, threatening him with nausea.

It was a while before there was a lull in storm activity. The static over comms slowly diminished until Marcus could be heard asking, voiced laced with concern. “Everyone, status report ASAP when you hear this.”

Clarence reported his status, noting that his weather drone feed was gone, likely drone destroyed.

He listened as all but one of the others reported in. He was about to say something but was beaten to the quick by Marcus.

“Tennyson S8, report in….. blast it. Everyone, we got lucky with that thanks to Clarence, but for now I want everyone out of the cloud.” ordered Marcus.

Clarence decided that down and away was his best course as he knew what was above. Using the drone tugs, he wrangled the nose of his harvester to point to the right direction, all the while listening over the comms network, waiting for his best friend to respond to the boss’ continued entreaties.

Outside, the light and sound had remained relatively quiet although occasional flashes and rumbles were seen and heard, particularly at the interface where the clouds met. Clarence could always swear he saw images

It was a couple of minutes before there was a reply.

“This is Tennyson S8. Sorry, it took a while to reboot comms.” It was Lucas’ voice. He could hear the strain in his voice.

Marcus must have heard it to as he replied. He was Lucas’ uncle. “Lucas, what’s wrong?”

“I’ve got one drone down pulling me down while the other is on fire and has me twirling around…..” replied Lucas.

The sound of a muffled explosion came over the comms, while cloud lit up in unison.

Lucas swore, his voice panicky. “Boss….. Uncle Marcus…. The drone just blew up and shrapnel has torn a hole in the side of the hold. I’m losing harvest.”

In normal circumstances, the loss of harvest was something an inconvenient waste of time and resources but in the middle of a storm it quickly spelt disaster.

“Lucas! Eject Now!” commanded Marcus. “Everyone else, dive out.”

Dive out command was where a harvester is flown out straight down perpendicular to the ground. Weights inbuilt into the core of the harvester’s flotation balloon, normally distributed for balance, are shunted forward. The drone tugs are also pulling down as well.

It is a move used in dire emergencies. In this case, the emergency is Tennyson S8 loss of harvest. Harvester shedding represents a concentration of what is usually thin loose fibres, fibres that contain energy that attract and absorb other energies such as electricity.

Unfortunately, attracting and absorbing too much energy, say as such from a lightning bolt results in an volatile explosion.

All of this raced through Clarence’s mind, as he faced out of his cockpit, hopefully towards the ground.

As if on queue, the cloud reacted to another impact from above.

The last he heard in the comms before the storm cacophony overtook all the noise was his friend’s and his boss’ simultaneous yell denying fate

Clarence saw the flash of light in the cloud before the shockwave struck his harvester violently, causing him to black out.

When he came to, he realised that the harvester was stopped horizontal in mid air. He quickly went and checked all of the diagnostics but it appears he was ok. The harvester’s fail safe cut into level out after the controls felt no resistance, indicating no pilot input.

He called over the comms but there was no reply. Checking the clock, he saw he had blanked out for ten minutes and so decided to report his status.

He in silence recollecting their wits, waiting on a reply or anything from the comms.

After a while, Marcus came on and spoke, relief evident in his voice “Ok, two way is back on. Heard everyone loud and clear but couldn’t reply. Well, that was messy but Lucas is safely on the ground.” A simultaneous cheer erupted. Marcus waited for it to subside. “We now have a Category S purple cloud that needs harvesting until sunrise or when we reach capacity. Just as well, as I have a harvester to replace. Back to work but eyes on your displays. Marcus Tennyson out.”

The chorus of affirmatives came through the comms. Clarence looked and saw the enormous monolith tower that the purple cloud had become.

Clarence went to reach for the controls but was stopped by a winking light on comms control, one you only saw when the Boss wanted to talk directly. He toggled the assigned switch.

“Hey kid, just wanted to say good job on the early warning before.That could have been a lot worse for us. I’ll let Lucas know you’re alright as well. He asked. Anyway, if I got the projected numbers right, after I get another harvester, there’ll be a bonus for you.” Marcus spoke directly.

Clarence replied, smiling. “No problem, Boss. Thank you.”

“Right, well, enough of that. Back to work.” said Marcus.

“Yes sir.” The comms went silent.

Clarence let out a sigh of relief, gripped the harvester controls and made his way to the purple cloud.

It was going to be a long night to sunrise when the cloud’s dance with the sky ends with its disappearance.