Jed Calvert - \"Waking up\" pt2

Who: Captain Jed Calvert
Where: Cargo Bay 8
When: During the riot
Captain Calvert always thought of himself as an imposing man, someone
whom other people will listen to. He had built up this impression of
importance by waving his guns around so much that after a very short
time, people tended to pay attention to him. Or they died.
But in this loud rabble he felt very insignificant. If he brandished
his guns around here only a small amount of people would notice.
People barged past him and pushed him in several directions at once,
which really didn't do much good for his hangover. He tried firing his
gun into the air to get everybody's attention but the noise was
drowned out by even more gunfire and the voices of several hundred
people shouting at once.
The surreality of the situation hit him as he saw many crewmembers
frantically running around in their pyjamas, as they must work the
night-shift and this being their night-time (in space, is there a
correct day and night?), and had got out of bed when they had heard
the sirens and warnings that the alcohol was on fire. Also a group of
hairy men wearing nothing but "Borat"-thongs, evidently on some kind
of stag night, or maybe were performing some strange sexual practice
when they had heard the sirens.
Jed was all in favour of a bit of a ruckus, but not when it was on his
ship. And especially not when he had this much of a hangover. He soon
became aggravated by so many people pushing past him that he started
lashing out at the people closest to him. Two men fell unconscious,
and fell to the ground where their limp bodies were severely trampled on.
Jed hadn't achieved anything as people were still pushing, but he was
starting to feel better. He knew that if he were to control this riot
he needed to get up somewhere high. They were his crew, and although
he was normally too much of a bastard for them to respect him as their
leader, he knew that he could threaten to cut everyone's pay unless
they all went home.
He pulled himself up onto a metal beam that sprang diagonally up from
the floor and criss-crossed with another similar beam coming from the
ceiling. Again he fired his twin pistols into the roof, but the noise
wasn't loud enough to cut above the noise of the riot.
From this vantage point however, he could see where the crewmembers
were fighting to get to. There were two large silos at the back of
this room that people were draining into anything that could hold
liquid, coke bottles, camel-packs, saucepans, etc. They were then
fighting through the crowd to escape.
Other people were fighting over themselves to get to the twenty
storage lockers where the bottled beers and spirits were held. Several
were on fire, which people were leaving alone, but most had been
broken into (or were in the process of being broken into) and were
being looted by people who were putting bottles down their trousers so
they could carry more.
Jed shook his head. He totally understood the threat of the fire.
Plenty of people onboard had such dull jobs that the only thing that
made their dreary jobs worthwhile was that they could go out and get
lashed at the end of their shift. If there was no alcohol he would
have people either going on strike, or revolting against the Command
Staff. He couldn't be arsed to deal with that kind of situation.
But... he also didn't want to let everyone get away with this free
alcohol.
The rather boring economy onboard the Blue Dwarf basically went like
this. Every pint sold in Parrotts bar was taxed, and that money went
straight to a bank account that the Blue Dwarf used for repairs,
maintenance, staff wages, etc, but most importantly to Jed, it was the
money he used to play poker with on Friday nights in the slum sector.
So these people were stealing from HIM.
He targeted a tall, pale skinned man who was holding a beer bottle
under each arm and raised his pistol to give the man a warning shot...
which went straight through his head.
"Gorram bastard moved!" Jed cursed. "Ah well. One less person's
monthly salary to pay."
<To be continued...>