*** Crew Lounge * USS Chimera *** "I'd like to know what happened." Rangi said quietly. "I've often wondered about it...what became of you...and her." She waited for him to begin, not pressing further and realizing that his tale would be difficult to tell. "The intel assignment that I accepted, which had to see me off the ship, was linked to Nevarre. There was a big operation that SFI was in the process of accomplishing, when something went wrong. Their main source was disappeared, her body was found with a message to the spooks.....'Try again and hell will be unleashed.' it said. Remember our mission to the Drakanus system, a while back, with the miners being infected by an unknown source?" Rangi nodded slowly. "Yes I do." she answered, remembering the simple people who had been terrorised into believing the Paig Wraith would kidnap them.Nevarre had played on their superstitions and used them as subjects for her evil experiments. "Well, SFI could not let that go and since they could not infiltrate her ranks, since she was supicious of anyone, very well into a deep state of paranoia, there was the only means left. Me." He paused,taking in a piece of chicken he'd been looking at for a few seconds. " Her number one tough guy..... The man that made the actions happen, on her behalf was indeed my brother Kemar. The spooks told me we were not only twins, but clones, and explained to me her whole plot from the beginning with the info their source gave them. They thought for me, it would be easy to infiltrate them, since the bioscans, in all shapes and sizes, would be the same as Kemar." He paused letting the info sink in. Rangi held his gaze, thinking that now she could believe anything about Intel and their way of working. "Go on.." she said. "We had Kemar 'removed' from the scene and I replaced him, for a while. Initially, we moved from planet to planet, meeting with criminal organizations, selling biogenic weapons, and the super-soldier serum, she had successfully modified. Of course, SFI with SF security followed in our tracks, taking everyone down as we moved along. She never knew what hit her. When SFI had enough evidence to convict her, I moved in, for the 'kill' " He looked around, checking if anyone was listening, in appearance. "She never let herself caught alive. She jumped off the top of the building, on that stormy night. She was declared dead by the people that recovered the body. On my side of things, I got the final dose, during my undercover mission, since I had an easy access to the materials." "Okrin..." Rangi said and shook her head. "I dont know what to say. " She looked down at her plate then back to him, her expression almost doubting. "Is she really dead?" she asked "I'd like to believe so, but they never let me see her body, once the debrief was completed. I'll probably never know. I won't know where my parents are either, or see my brother ever again, although I would not want to." He grabbed a leaf of lettuce and dragged it on the plate, before closing his mouth around the fork. "I was so disillusioned about the whole thing, that I retired. I did not want to have anything to do with SFI or Starfleet... but looks like time changes things. There is no public record of this, and never will be, it was one of those missions that happened but did not happen." he added. Rangi broke their shared gaze and reached for her glass. "There are many of those." she responded quietly watching the bubbles rising in her drink. Looking back to Okrin she said "Then lets try to put that to the past..and look to a new beginning here." Once again she raised her glass. "To you....Major" she said then smiled at her own mistake. "I'm going to have difficulty in remembering that" she told him. He raised his glass and clinked it with hers. "Thank you." he said, simply. "Just like I'm getting used to it so will you." He swallowed a mouthfull and resumed working on the salad, which was half finished. "That's not considering my 'business' venture with an old Andorian friend." He suddenly remembered. "Oh by the way, when I was at the academy, I met a great woman, Thalia is her name." He showed her the ring he was wearing on the white gold chain around his neck. Rangi leaned forward, reaching to touch the ornament. "Thats lovely" she said and having examined it, sat back and gave him a thoughtful look. "Where 'I' come from..a ring worn around the neck has a special meaning." she said and waited with interest to see what responce she would get. "That's correct. We met during my residency. She's also a medical officer, but was not assigned to SSF. When the time comes, when we are joined again, we will pick up where we left off, so to speak." he said, looking at the ring, the simple gold ring that meant so much. "We promised to each other. I know times change things, but I do hope this will last, even if we are apart for long periods of time." "I'm sure it will." Rangi said, pleased for his happiness and with a smile that expressed the fact. "Distance isnt good ofcourse...but even on a ship... there's no guarantee of plentiful time together." "I'm sure with your new position you'll see more of Shane, I mean you'll both be working on the bridge. That's a plus." They carried on with pleasantries and sharing of past memories, their times on Aurora, him prior to that on the Crazy horse and 51st Hawke. Eventually time caught up to them, and Okrin had to return to sickbay to carry on with his day's workload. They parted with a "see ya around." that old pals would give each other. Old times... They where right now... *** End Log *** Ens Nejor Okrin MedicalOfficer USS Chimera-A (SSF) & Commander Rangi Summers XO USS Chimera