The Invisible Crewman
By KSTREKER1
This story is strictly the product of the writer's imagination. It is in celebration and promotion of Star Trek The Original Series and is based on that series. It is not in any way intended to infringe upon any copyrights, licenses, registered trademarks, enfranchisements, or any other instruments of properties, either real, intellectual, or mercantile.
It was one of the most disgusting things that Crewman Ron Willis had ever been tasked to deal with as far as he could remember. The deck and bulkhead were spattered with pools and runnels of a viscous greenish yellow substance. There were chunks of unidentifiable brownish yellow things floating in them or sticking to the deck or bulkhead also. There were even bits of it on the overhead.
Ron Willis was listed on the ship's books as an environmental resident engineer. What this boiled down to was that he was the ship's janitor. He had not joined Star Fleet to become a janitor, but the aptitude tests he had taken at the enlisted personnel training center didn't allow him to do much of anything else. He sometimes longed to be called out to join a landing party so that he could see some of the places the ship visited or at least have a chance for some advancement. Then, he'd see them bringing in some poor red shirt guys after someone or something had gotten hold of them and he would then be perfectly happy right where he was. He had been called upon to help clean up the transporter room or a shuttle craft after a number of such incidents and he had seen a lot of new faces transferred in to replace the ones who didn't make it back alive.
"Oh well," he thought, "at least I don't have to clean up the entire ship." He sighed heavily as he turned away to gather up cleaning supplies and disinfectants to deal with this newest mess. He first applied protective sealant to his uniform and exposed skin areas and pulled disposable slippers over his deck shoes. He intended to gather up as much of the fowl-smelling muck into bio-hazard containers as he could, then use caustic cleaning solutions and disinfectants to get rid of the residue and restore this area of the ship to the same standard of cleanliness that held for the rest of it.
He was the only janitor on the ship because much of it was self-cleaning. The sanitary facilities, food service and recreation areas could all clean and disinfect themselves as long as the mess wasn't too much for their ultraviolet and ultrasonic cleaning systems to handle. Crew members were expected to clean up their own messes for the most part and they were responsible for keeping their own quarters clean. The captain and other senior officers had yeomen to do that for them of course, but as long as Rom Willis kept the supply rooms well stocked with everything the crew needed to keep their ship up, and most of the time, it worked out pretty well.
This mess, unfortunately, was not one of the crew's fault, or at least Ron Willis hoped it wasn't. He couldn't imagine how this happened or where it came from but it sure was a nasty, stinky, disgusting mess. "I've got to think about something else or I'm going to be adding to this," Ron thought as he gagged for the fourth time. Two other crewmen walked by heading for the ship's gymnasium. They were taking their tunics off as they went and one of their flailing arms caught the handles of the mop and scrubber he had leaned against the bulkhead. Both implements flopped over and dropped into a pool of goo. The two crewmen, eager for their workout and totally absorbed in themselves, failed to notice. They kept going, talking loudly and taking up the entire width of the corridor as they went. Ron Willis cursed savagely as he stooped and lifted a slimy handle. He stewed to himself as he cleaned the handles and disinfected them. To him, it was a symptom of everything that was wrong on the ship. The captain was always telling the crew how important they all were and how each and every member had something vital to contribute to the success of their five year mission. Yet it seemed to Ron, that if you didn't wear a gold tunic or have some rings around your sleeves you just kind of became part of the background, like the flashing lights on the consoles, or the throbbing of the engines or the life support systems.
Ron thought morosely about the biggest cleaning job he had ever undertaken. Those tribbles had been a nightmare. They just kept multiplying and spreading throughout the ship. They got into all the Jeffreys tubes and service crawlways and food processors and cargo bays. You couldn't let a door close or sit in a chair without worrying about squashing a few of them. They had been cute enough, but it was definitely proof that a little cute goes a long way.
The captain had called for the entire ship to be cleaned up immediately and Ron Willis threw himself into high gear as he worked to find a way to gather up as many tribbles as he could before they popped out a bunch of little tribbles. After some trial and error, he found that he could use an old-fashioned broom to sweep them away from the bulkheads, and then an old-fashioned snow shovel to gather them up into a rolling cargo bin. He could then take the full bin to the transporter room and they would beam them over to Cyrano Jones's ship. What Jones did with them was his own problem. Of course, Scotty had seen him doing that and had gotten the idea that he could use the transporter on wide field to beam all the tribbles away at once. So by the time he did that and Captain Kirk had found out where all the tribbles had been beamed to, everyone was too busy laughing it up to remember that it had been the lowly crewman, Ron Willis who had inspired the thought. The captain thought it was either Scotty or Spock who thought it up. Ron Willis wound up with nothing but a snow shovel and a broom that he suddenly had to find a place for.
By now, Ron had gotten most of the filth picked up and he was ready to start washing everything down and decontaminating the area. He had just started scrubbing down the overhead when a number of things happened at once. As he worked a long-handled scrubber over his head, and against the overhead, the fumes from the caustic cleaning solution filled his nostrils. This caused him to sneeze rather explosively, which in turn, caused him to drop the scrubber. As it fell, its long handle thudded against the side of a bottle of bleach solution for cleaning the deck. This promptly spilled and flowed over Ron's feet and the deck around them. Ron then tried to stoop over and pick up the scrubber and set the bottle of bleach solution back upright. However, the deck was now slick with the bleach solution and the disposable slippers he had pulled on suddenly had no purchase. His feet shot out from under him and he crashed face-down on the as yet un-cleaned and still contaminated deck. The fowl smell and taste of the slimy residue filled his nose and mouth.
He struggled up from the deck, spluttering and coughing and he knew that if he didn't get to a waste extraction facility right away, he would have another mess to clean up. He scuttled off to the nearest one and barely made it to the lavatory fixture when he violently heaved his lunch into it. Afterward, he scrubbed himself as best he could and washed out his mouth until the sanitizer he used for that almost made him vomit again. He was in a thoroughly bad mood now as he returned to the scene of the accident. "Can anything else go wrong now?" he wondered.
When he got back to the bend in the corridor where the mess still awaited him, he found Dr. McCoy, the ships chief medical officer waiting there, too. "What in blazes happened here," McCoy barked. Then McCoy looked more closely at Ron. "What in blazes happened to you?" he asked more gently. "Are you alright? Do you need to go to sick bay?"
"I'm OK, Doc," Ron said. I had a little accident but I'm dealing with it. "Was there something I could do for you, sir?"
McCoy was still staring intently at Ron. "I was looking for the xyach sloth that the Varolian was hunting. Have you seen it, Crewman?"
"The what, sir?" Ron asked.
"The Varolian delegates we have onboard don't understand our ways of doing things yet. One of them let a xyach sloth from their food supplies out so he could hunt it and kill it fresh. Evidently, this one had either not been told or had forgotten that we have provided a place for that on deck seven in cargo bay fourteen. The Varolians spray their live food with digestive enzymes before they try to consume it, something like the way several insects back on Earth feed themselves. It looks like that's what happened here. I've always wanted to study this and now I have a chance, except that your cleaning may have destroyed any useful samples I might have gotten."
Ron carefully moved to where he could get to the bio-hazard container that contained what he had scooped off the deck and bulkhead. "Be my guest, Doc," he said. "I didn't use any chemicals on this stuff, so it should give you plenty of slime to study."
"McCoy smiled. "Well, that's more like it," he said eagerly. "I might be able to learn something from this." He waved as he turned away, holding the stinking container well away from himself.
Ron turned back toward the mess. He studied the effects of his fall and was immediately reminded of the bad mood he had been in. "Now I'm gonna have to clean the deck first to get off the extra bleach so nobody will trip over it, and then I'm gonna have to clean the overhead and the bulkhead, and then I'm gonna have to clean the deck again because no doubt something will drip on it once it's clean the first time. " He cursed in exasperation and set to work.
For the next couple of days, Ron's routine was relatively undisturbed. He cleaned up a couple of minor messes, restocked the supply lockers on all decks, made out his requisitions for new supplies for the quartermaster, and did his regular cleaning of all the turbo-lift cars.
Then, on the third day after the big cleaning fiasco with the xyach sloth, whatever that was, he was disposing of several containers of hazardous waste from the ship's laboratories when he began to feel very unwell. He resolved to go to sick bay once he was finished with his duty shift and get himself checked out. He never made it. He was on his way back from the phaser incinerator on deck ten when a wave of dizziness swept over him and everything swiftly went black. He was unconscious by the time his body fell against a bulkhead and then partway through a doorway.
Lieutenant Kevin Riley was on duty in the systems monitor room off engineering when he noticed a flashing trouble light on one of the maintenance boards. He looked at the panel more closely and then reached for the intercom panel. "Any engineers on deck ten, please acknowledge."
A voice came crackling back at him almost at once, "This is Rolland. I'm in section eleven, deck ten."
"This is Riley, engineering monitor. I've got an open hatch indicator light in section five on your deck. Please check on it and report."
"Acknowledged," Mission Specialist Dana Rolland answered. "I'm on it in five."
Nothing else was heard from that area again for several minutes. Then, instead of Rolland calling directly back to Engineering, she sent out a general call on the ship-wide channel. "Medical emergency! Deck ten, section five, area nine! I have a man down! Condition unknown! I need medics here on the double!"
Although Riley couldn't leave his post, several other members of the crew responded and within seconds, the relatively uninhabited regions of deck ten were suddenly swarming with people wanting to help their injured crewmate. They found Ron Willis sprawled in a doorway, with half his body inside the room he had fallen into and half his body outside in the corridor. His body had prevented the automatic door from closing and caused a trouble light to go on in Engineering. If it had not been for that lucky happenstance, Ron Willis might have lain where he had fallen for many hours before he was found. They quickly acquired a stretcher from an emergency supply locker and hurried to sick bay with their fallen crewmate.
Several minutes later, the door to sick bay opened again and Captain James T. Kirk and first officer, Commander Spock walked into the main examination area. McCoy was bent over a man on a bio-bed, running a medical tricorder over him and frowning intensely. Above the patient's head, the bio-bed's monitor displayed an array of readings along with the rapidly throbbing beat of the crewman's heart, amplified many times and pulsing through the air like a runaway engine.
"Bones," Kirk said, a look of concern on his face. "What happened? What's wrong with this man?"
"I'm not sure yet, Jim," McCoy replied distractedly. "I think he's got some kind of infection. It's system-wide and very aggressive. I need to do some more tests before I can say for sure. I'll let you know as soon as I can."
Kirk nodded. "We'll be on the bridge. Contact me there when you have something."
McCoy nodded, not bothering to answer and Kirk and Spock turned away and left sick bay. "A most curious situation, Captain," Spock said in his deep, thoughtful voice.
"Yes," Kirk responded. "Who was that man anyway? I didn't recognize him."
"I believe he was and is crewman Ronald Willis, the ship's environmental resident engineer." Spock said.
"The ship's what?" Kirk asked.
"His position description is indeed somewhat ambiguous," Spock said but as I understand it, he is responsible for general maintenance and cleaning tasks for the entire ship." Spock added. "For the most part, these are tasks he performs with very little supervision."
"Hmm," Kirk said thoughtfully. "That would make him one of Scotty's lads."
Spock raised his eyebrows in his characteristic way of expending as little effort as possible to express a great deal. "At least as far as the ship's personnel roles are concerned. However, I do not believe Engineer Scott has much contact with him on a daily basis."
Kirk made a mental note to speak with Scotty as soon as he got the chance, but for now, he needed to get up to date on the status of the entire ship. When they arrived on the bridge, there were of course, other things that called upon Kirk's attention and he didn't think about crewman Willis again for some time.
McCoy straightened up and worked the kinks out of his spine. He had been gazing with interest at the contents of various microscope slides for some time now, and his spine was complaining bitterly about it. "Some of this looks familiar," he thought as he paced the pathology lab's limited floor space. "I've seen something like this recently but I'm not sure where. Well, at least I've got enough to give Jim a preliminary report."
"Sick bay to Captain Kirk," McCoy's voice floated out of a speaker grill in the armrest of Kirk's command chair. "I've got a preliminary report on crewman Willis, Captain."
Kirk removed his chin from where it rested in his bunched fist and reached down to answer the intercom. "I need to stretch my legs, Bones. I'll be right down." He punched off the intercom as he rose from his chair. "Spock, you have the Con."
"Acknowledged." Spock said as he stepped away from his library computer panel and moved toward the command chair.
When Kirk reached sick bay, McCoy was standing at the foot of the bio-bed on which Willis still lay. "What have you got, Bones," Kirk asked.
"Well," McCoy said, "he's in a coma. His body has been infected by a pathogen that is so far, not yet identified. I've run enough tests on him now, to satisfy myself that he's not contagious. I think I may even have some clues as to what the pathogen is, but I don't have it nailed down yet. I think I've seen something like it recently, though, so I don't think it'll be long before I can tell you what it is and how we're going to get rid of it."
"What's the prognosis, doctor," Kirk asked, not liking the look of the young crewman at all.
"He's a very sick young man," McCoy answered seriously. "I would list him as critical but stable," he added. "We're able to do quite a bit for him and I have every reason to believe we'll pull him through this, Jim."
Kirk nodded, a troubled frown on his face. "Keep me posted, will you, Bones? I've got a sick man on my ship and I don't even know anything about him."
"I'll let you know something as soon as I know it," McCoy said gently. He never forgot that no matter how busy Kirk was or what matters of galactic import he had on his mind, he always had room to spare a thought to the safety and well-being of his crew, no matter who they were.
Twelve hours passed and Ron Willis still lay on the same bio-bed in sick bay, still feverish and still in a coma. Happenings on the rest of the ship were relatively routine, so a lot of people were now aware of what was going on in sick bay and were wondering about the outcome of it. Captain Kirk and his chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery (Scotty) Scott met in sick bay and looked down at the still form on the bio-bed.
"One of yours, Scotty?" Kirk asked. He knew that Scotty was fiercely concerned about the well-being of his engineers.
"Barely, sir," Scotty said in his thick burr. "He's assigned to me but ha dunna have many dealings with him. Mostly, we just send him work orders on his terminal and he makes log entries to show he's getting em done. I've had no complaints aboot him or his work so, ha've left him to it."
"Hmm," Kirk murmured. "Well, he's gotten himself into something now and he's going through a rough time of it."
"Aye, sir," Scotty replied. "The doctor says he knows what's got him though. Told me he's on his way in here to tell us aboot it."
Their conversation stopped there as the sick bay door opened and McCoy, followed by his nurse, Christine Chapel, walked in. He was pulling out his medical tricorder as he came and she carried two hypo-sprays in her hands. "Captain. Scotty," he acknowledged the presence of the two officers in the room. "I'll be right with you."
He stepped up to the bio-bed and reached for the intravenous line that kept Ron Willis fed and hydrated. He held out his hand and Chapel slid one of the hypo-sprays into it. McCoy than injected it into an infusion port on the line. He then released the line and began running his tricorder over the young crewman. He grunted in satisfaction and held out his hand. Chapel pushed the other hypo-spray into it and took back the used one. McCoy leaned forward and injected this second hypo-spray into Willis' neck. He scanned for a few moments and then turned to his nurse with a look of satisfaction on his face.
"Do the line injection three more times over the next twelve hours, Christine. He should be all yours, now."
Christine Chapel smiled, "I'll note all this in his chart and take good care of him, doctor," she promised.
McCoy finally turned to the two senior officers who were waiting more or less patiently for him to get around to speaking to them. "Gentlemen," he said.
"What's all this, Doctor?" Scotty asked. "How's young Willis then?"
"You'll be glad to know that I'm upgrading his condition to hopeful!" McCoy announced. "He's not quite all the way out of the woods yet, but he's getting there."
"What was it, Bones?" Jim asked, a note of impatience starting to creep into his voice.
"Well," McCoy began to explain, "It seems that our young crewman Willis here is a victim of good inter-species relations and all that. You see, a couple of days before all this happened, one of the Varolian delegates let one of their food animals out of it's cage so he could hunt it down and kill it."
"I thought we provided for that," Kirk said, annoyed. "We cleared out a cargo bay and set it up for them, against my better judgment."
"That's right," McCoy said, "We did. But for some reason, this particular Varolian didn't do what was explained to them to do. He chased it down to near where the gymnasium is and killed and consumed it there. These beings consume their food by spraying it with digestive enzymes, much the same way that a lot of earthly insects do. This softens up their food and makes it easier for them to get it down. Unfortunately, if the creature they're eating is too big, they leave the rest of it behind. It's quite a mess and that's where young Willis came into it. He was trying to clean the mess up and apparently came into too close contact with what was left. The pathogen he was infected with was the result."
Scotty stiffened. "You mean these beasties carry some kind of disease? Or is it in their food animals?"
"It's actually part of the biology of the Varolians," McCoy said. I got plenty of samples of it from the bio-hazard container that Willis gave me. That's what made it possible for me to come up with a treatment for this infection. However, if Starfleet ships carry any more of these Varolians, we're going to have to adopt some stricter habitat guidelines for them. This pathogen is harmless to them, but it loves to feast on humans very much."
"So will he live, bones?" Kirk spoke up.
"Oh yes, Jim," McCoy said smiling again. "He'll be up and around in a day or two. I want to keep him here for another day, but he should be back on duty by the end of the week."
"Good!" Kirk said. "Let me know when he comes around, will you, Bones? I want to have a little chat with him."
"Sure thing, Jim," McCoy said. "Oh, uh, Captain," he went on. "Don't be too hard on the boy?" He asked. "He's been through a rough ride."
Kirk nodded and gestured Scotty out of sick bay. "Let's have a bite to eat, Scotty," he said. "I want to talk to you about this refit we've got coming up."
"Aye, sir," Scotty said briskly. "Just let me check in with engineering and make sure those lads are on their toes."
The next day, Ron Willis opened his eyes. For a moment, he didn't know where he was or why he was there. Then the events that lead up to his collapse swam fuzzily back into his mind. He looked around himself. He was in sick bay. McCoy and Nurse Chapel were there smiling down at him. He continued to carefully move his head. Captain Kirk was also there.
Ron gasped and tried to sit up. "Captain," he croaked.
"Take it easy," McCoy said as he and Chapel gently pushed Ron back down on the bio-bed.
"As you were, crewman," Kirk said, looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face. "How are you feeling, Mister Willis?"
"Oh, I'm feeling much better, sir," Willis said and was surprised to find that he really did. "What happened to me, sir," he asked, still trying to get some moisture in his parched throat.
"You got tangled up with a Varolian pathogen," McCoy said. It hit you pretty hard."
"You mean from that big mess I cleaned up the other day?" Willis asked growing agitated. "I knew I'd wind up havin problems from that," he growled.
"About that," Kirk said somewhat sharply. "I understand you had some kind of an incident regarding that clean-up job."
"Well, yes, sir," Willis said haltingly. "It was my fault though, sir. I just got too clumsy there for a minute."
"And yet," Kirk said "We haven't found a variance report anywhere in ship's records. Why is that, crewman?
"Oh, well, I didn't do one, sir," Willis said quietly. "It was an accident, and my own fault and I didn't want…"
"What you don't want to do, Mister," Kirk said sternly, "is to disregard ship's procedures just so you don't have to look foolish."
"No, sir," Willis said meekly. "It won't happen again, sir."
"Good answer," Kirk replied. "See that it doesn't. It almost got you killed this time. Don't you realize that if we'd had a report, it wouldn't have taken as much time to find out what was wrong with you? You could have died from this!"
"I see that, sir," the Crewman said. "I've learned my lesson."
"I believe you have," Kirk said in a much kinder voice. "Ordinarily, I'd put you on report and you'd have to do some disciplinary duty for this. However, under the circumstances, I think you've been punished enough. Just stick to procedure from now on."
"Aye, sir," Willis responded.
"Oh and Willis," Kirk said, starting to turn away. "From now on, if you have a big job to do, don't try to do it alone? Evaluate the situation and if you need help, then ask for it. I've advised Yeoman Rand and her people that they're your back-up from now on. Don't hesitate to call on them."
"Yes, sir," Willis barked. Thank you, sir," he added more quietly as Kirk left the sick bay. "Well," Ron said to McCoy and Chapel. "What do you know about that?"
"About what," McCoy asked puzzled.
"Well, I always thought I was kind of invisible around here," Willis said. "To have the captain here when I wake up from this…"
"Oh, son," McCoy replied gently. "The only person you were invisible to around here was yourself. The captain cares about every man and woman on this crew. He's said it often enough. After all, we're all part of the ship, and the ship is all to him."
Ron thought about that for a long time as he lay in sick bay. Over the next day or so, he had a steady stream of visitors from the deck department and engineering and all the ship's yeomen. He came to appreciate their concern for him and he resolved that from that time forward, he would strive to become more a part of this ship's life and not spend his time being the invisible crewman.