Hank discovered medicine in the academy and for once he found something that held his interest. He applied himself to the point of obsession. He graduated at the top of his class and was accepted for the Andorian medical exchange program. He hated the freezing climate of Andor, and the generally stand-offish personality of Andorians in general, but the medical techniques he learned and refined there more than made up for it. He left the Andorian College with his main emphasis on virology and pathology. Which turned out to be quite handy in his next tours of duty.

The Ranger was his first starship assignment and he performed as expected. It was tedious work and with the Ranger running mainly ambassadorial missions well within Federation borders there was not much for him to do.

It was when he was transferred to Lupon III that his career started moving.

Lupon III was a class M planet with no intelligent indigenous lifeforms. It was a prime candidate for colonization. Several starter communities were sent and things were going well. Over several years the population doubled and then tripled with the arrival of new colonists. Then one colonist came down with a fever. At first it seemed to improve but within ten days the man's lymphnodes had swollen and burst, killing him and infecting the doctors treating him. Within a few short weeks the entire colony had contracted the infection, some dying within hours others taking days, and a rare few were unaffected.

A task force was assembled. Hank was assigned as head of the field research wing. He collected samples and worked with some of the finest virology experts in the fleet. They managed to find a way to stave off the infection before the entire population was decimated, but could not determine the cause of the outbreak. Things seemed to be under control, then of course mother nature decided to throw a curve ball.

Luponion mutated.

Now it changed gears and instead of attacking the lymphatic system it went for the central nervous system. Causing paralysis, psychotic behavior, then coma and of course death.

The research team managed to get many off the planet who were clean and the virus was contained. The next several years were spent scouring the surface of the planet for the cause of the virus. Over 32, 000 people died before the disease was contained and then finally mapped.

The research for the virus was continued on Starbase 909 where an accidental power-surge blew the containment and infected most of the base. A vaccine was discovered but it only rendered the person who took the injection immune; they could however, still carry the virus. Starfleet quarantined the station and for two years research continued.

When the quarantine was lifted Hank resigned his commission and took up independent research in the private sector. He'd seen enough death to last a lifetime and dedicated himself to viral research.

Seven years later he was reactivated when an outbreak of something resembling Luponion appeared on another planet. This time It was a terrorist attack. Planet Hazlon IV was a farming planet that had no real military value, but as a testbed for biological weapons it was ideal. The culprits were never found, though links to the Obsidian order and the Tal'shiar abounded. The new strain was much more virulent than the last two and it took four years to get it under control. The cost in lives was terrible and Hank determined it would do him some good to get away from things planetside. He put in his request for starship duty longing for the tedium of the USS Ranger and a chance to come to grips with everything that he had seen.