Protest strongly at report from above (7)
I believe the answer is:
thunder
'protest' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with communicating as well as being verbs in their base form.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
I can't explain the remainder of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for thunder that I've seen before include "Boom; bellow" , "Weather featuring with 1" , "Red hunt for a loud noise" , "Clap" , "Meteorological rumblings" .)