Captain Calvert - "An insubordinate Christmas" pt1

Who: Captain Jed Calvert and Phil Febuggure
Where: Drive-Room
When: Christmas Day
Captain Calvert entered the Drive-Room from the Xpresslife Elevator
and tipped his hat to the crew working the various computers there.
The Blue Dwarf always needed at least a basic crew in the Drive-Room,
as it still was a spaceship in deep space, and dangers lurked
everywhere. It would be no good explaining to an alien marauder
insistent on disabling their ship and kidnapping all their women to
hold off for a few days while the crew open up their Christmas
presents.
So the Drive-Room was as busy as usual. As well as being on the
lookout for impending attack, the crew also needed to monitor control
of the ships air supply, central-heating, gravity, and waste systems.
These were boring but essential tasks.
Today, the Drive-Room crew looked especially pissed off. Jed slapped
a guy on the arm that was dozing at his desk. "Hey fella, do yer job.
I ain't paying you fer nothin'."
The man looked up and scowled. This took Jed by surprise because
normally the crew were so frightened that he'd go crazy and try and
insert his laser pistol up their nose.
Jed was ready to unleash a nasty punishment for this man's insolence,
but was distracted by Phil Febuggure calling him over to the other
side of the room.
"Captain. Have a look at this."
Jed narrowed his eyes at the man in front of him and pointed a
warning, then walked over to his Executive officer. As XO, Phil
normally took care of the sensible jobs that the Captain should do
while he was off drinking somewhere. He was currently stood behind a
rather bored looking worker, looking at a computer terminal.
"Whut is it Pardner?" Jed asked, looking at the screen but not being
able to understand the technical nonsense.
"We're monitoring the airflow around the ship. We normally keep the
mixture of oxygen and nitrogen at the same levels, but in the last
hour the levels have changed."
Jed shrugged. "An' yer telling me why?"
"Well that means if we don't sort it out the oxygen we need will
deplete and we'll gradually get poisoned. We'll all be poisoned by
new years eve."
Jed took a deep breath, this might be the last breath of clean air he
would breathe in a while. "Why is this happening'?"
"This is normally the job of someone in Engineering. And right now it
looks like someone isn't doing their job properly." Phil said.
Jed cracked his knuckles. "I'll go sort `em out."
He turned to leave but Phil held his arm lightly. "Captain. Go easy
on them, remember it's Christmas day and no-one has been able to
drink alcohol in at least 48 hours. The crew isn't exactly having a
cheerful Christmas."
Jed sighed. "Don't worry son. It's hittin' us all pretty hard. But
that ain't no excuse fer them to not do the job ah pay `em for."
Jed walked out of the Drive-Room with purpose. Jed didn't sympathise
often, but he actually did in this case. He knew that plenty of the
crew liked their drink, and knew that without a new supply he might
have a second riot on his hands.
< To be continued >