Nimbus Cloud Attack

A Jet SwiftAir 25k flew it's usual intercontinental route at noon through a bright red sky over the yellowish water below.

The flight lasts 12 hours. The flights used to be both long and miserably bumpy, with sedatives and alcohol being mandatory for every passenger to be able to put up with it. But now, every plane is outfitted with the latest, greatest, patented SoftRide Hydrolayer that keeps the inside from feeling any turbulence on the outside. The great thing about them is that no matter how turbulent the weather is, you won't feel a thing. The terrible thing about them is that you won't know the plane has crashed until you hit the water. And the water is filled with carnivorous tentacle monsters. On the other hand, passenger panic pre-digestion by tentacle monsters is down 85%.

Knowing this, I had been watching the wings of the vessel shake through the window with growing dread.

I decided to go to the front cabin to speak to the pilot. A piece of our conversation was recovered from the black box of the plane. I have transcribed it here. Then I'll continue my part in the story.  


...."Oh, obviously there’s nothing wrong with the copilot."

"But he’s fallen asleep"

"That doesn’t mean that he’s not a good pilot. You should see him when he’s awake!"

"He can’t really pilot when he’s asleep though."

"He’s not even awake to defend himself. Way to kick a man while he’s down."

"Well, who’s flying the plane?"

"The computer is flying the plane, obviously. Do you want to insult it, too?"

"I guess not, but I don’t see the point of you two being here if the computer can do all the flying."

"You wouldn’t understand. It’s all very complex."

"Try to explain a little of it to me. Start by telling me what you’re doing right now."

"Well right now, I’m chatting with you and wasting by time."

"Before you started doing that."

"Dinner."

"Dinner?"

"Yes. I was preparing dinner. Do you think that pilots survive on nothing but jet fuel?"

"No...I just-"

"You didn’t give any consideration to our feelings, did you?"

The copilot jerked awake with a start.

"What’s this?" He said, in a groggy but vaguely irritated voice.

"This little man has come into the cockpit and started complaining about the turbulance. As if we can do anything about it," said the irate pilot.

"I just wanted to know", I said timidly, "if maybe there wasn’t a good reason for it." 

"Do you mean to imply? That the turbulence of this aircraft was caused by the pilot and I?"

I looked down at the floor. “Well- “

“Do you think that the pilot and I are just up here, playing with the controls like toddlers? Do you have any idea what professionalism-"

The pilot cut off his friend. “We are doing just fine, and the turbulence is probably normal. The computer is doing the flying, I’ve got carrots to chop, and now my copilot is going to be tired and grumpy for his shift. What if there were an emergency?”

The copilot, who had been cut off mid-sentence, turned it on the pilot. 

“Well what if there were an emergency? You would have been cooking dinner. Again! Instead of looking at the controls.”

“Excuse me- “ I ventured

“Well you’re not doing much good, you were asleep.” The pilot answered back.

“I’m just going to-”

“At least I was still at my post while you were chopping away at your damned carrots. You know I hate carrots. They don’t belong with radishes, I‘ve told you a million times!”

“If you wouldn’t mind, I’ll just -”

“And I’ve told you a million times, if you don’t like it, then don’t eat it!”

“I’ll just be right over here.”

“Well it’s not like I have a choice, do I? We have a very well-laid-out chore list, and if you aren’t going to abide by it then I won’t be scrubbing the toilets any more!”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you! You only have to clean them once a week! Cleaning your office space is like wiping up after a two year old!”

I had edged my way over to the controls and examined them. There wasn’t anything really wrong with what was going on. Of course, I didn’t really know what I was looking for. There were a million dials and knobs and readouts, and they all seemed to be doing different things. What I wanted to find was a dial that was flickering, or an arrow that was spinning back and forth, or quivering or something. Something wrong. Causing turbulence. Nothing. But it was hard to see because of the dim lighting of the cabin. Of course there was no switch for the lights because they're automatic, and during daylight hours the lights remain off, and during nighttime they turn on, depending on how much ambient light there is. But the more I stared at the controls, the darker it seemed to get in the cabin. Finally, the electric lights kicked in. “Thanks.” I muttered to no one in particular.

But then I remembered that the lights were automatic.

And that it was noon.

The voices of the pilot and co-pilot stopped almost as soon as the thought ran through my head. Together, we peered through the tiny captains window through the five inch thick glass and into the world outside.

There was nothing but blackness.

Terrible, all consuming blackness of a terrible sentient cumulonimbus cloud rushing towards us at terrifying terrible speed.

TACBOATSCCRTUATTS, for short.

It makes a lot more sense in the native language of the planet Baal.

Which is where we were.

(You came in during the middle of the conversation. But now you know.)

The turbulence beforehand must have been caused by the small whisps that precede a nimbus attack. They spin around the rotor blades, wreaking small bits of havoc and getting into the engine. Most pilots who see one coming know to avoid them, because alone they can take down a ship.

The pilot took off his hat and placed it over his chest. Like a man at a funeral.

“No plane has ever survived.” He said, in an awed voice.

“No survivors have ever survived either.” Answered the copilot.

I backed out of the cabin.

(Baal is a planet with many strange phenomena. Among them is the Nimbus cloud. The cloud itself isn’t sentient. Or maybe it is- it’s kind of a mass conciousness type of thing. It doesn’t speak or communicate in any way. It just broods. See, on this planet, the water cycle flows through a series of cyclical pathways, the same way that it would anywhere else, but here, it works through negative energy. Water absorbs negative energy from the surrounding life on: The Ruthless United World of Baal, on where there is, believe it or not, a lot of negative energy. Then, when it has gotten enough so that its polarity is opposite that of its more positive brethren, it levitates upwards into clouds. When enough of the cloud gets together into a massive cluster of millions and billions of particles of negative energy, then it lashes out at everything that comes near it, and everything above and below it, until it is out of energy.)

I ran to the back of the plane and found my pack and threw it on my shoulder.

“Where are you going?” asked my seatmate

He had been a really nice man.

He had given me a stick of gum.

I didn’t want to upset him.

“Oh, I just thought I would go for a walk. Stretch my legs.”

The bewildered look he gave me suggested that he didn't think I was the kind of person you wanted to pursue conversation with.

So I apologized, though I’m still not sure what for,

and I went to find a way out.