February 28, 2371 (13 years later)
Captain Paris continued to look carefully ahead, face expressionless, as he was given his orders.
Retrieve former Lieutenant Commander Janeway from New Zealand. Check.
Take his ship into the Badlands. Check.
Capture the Maquis rogue ship, The Val Jean. Check.
Bring the rebels back for questioning, and eventual trial. Check.
As Admiral Jellico, his new superior officer, gave the orders, the captain rigidly maintained his patented Starfleet impassive face. Not even the twitch of an eyebrow was evident.
The Admiral frowned as he pretended to glance through his briefing notes. This was his first personal face-to-face meeting with this particular captain since taking over as the sector's commanding officer. He was finding it difficult to reconcile the person before him with the teenager he had first encountered almost fifteen years previously. That young man had been an irrepressible bundle of energy with an angelic smile that belied the mischievous soul within. Bright and sunny in personality, he would lighten the atmosphere of a room just by walking into it. Jellico's wife and love-struck daughter had playfully referred to the teenager in their private table talk as the Golden Angel.
Sadly, there was no sign of that engaging personality left in the self-contained and formidable officer before him.
With a deep breath, the Admiral continued the brief. A short two minutes later, Edward Jellico glanced surreptitiously at the officer's face as he completed his monologue. Nothing. Not even a hint of the man's thoughts on his assignment peeked through. But of course, that was why this man had been chosen for the job above countless others. His emotionless, ruthless adherence to the Starfleet way was well known throughout the fleet.
Quickly, the Admiral gave his final instructions. "Any questions or concerns?" he asked with an open enquiring face, futilely hoping to elicit some kind of personal feedback from the young man he'd once considered a good candidate to be his future son in-law. "No, sir!" came the immediate response. With a tight, brief smile Jellico dismissed the officer.
As the door closed behind the second youngest captain to ever grace Starfleet, the Admiral's smile dropped. Taking an uncharacteristic moment to lean back in his chair, and prop his feet on his desk, he pondered the enigma that was Thomas Eugene Paris.
Early in the piece, there had been many who had assumed that the officer's meteoric rise through the ranks stemmed from his family's contacts and position. They had been wrong. And very few of the man's subordinates stayed in ignorance of that truth for long. Captain Paris ran a very tight ship. He was well known for his exacting standards and strict observance of Starfleet protocols as well as his eidetic memory. The man knew the regulations backwards, forwards and sideways. Even Vulcan crew members were known to freeze, and hesitate momentarily, before answering a summons to the Captain's Ready Room a second time. In fact, he knew several Admirals who privately admitted to quaking in their shoes when having to deal with the man. In comparison, his father, the infamous Admiral Owen Paris, looked like a clawless pussycat.
Thinking again of the golden youth that he had first met, he shook his head, and sighed with regret. What had happened, he wondered. No-one, not his Section 31 contacts, or even the man's father, had been able to come up with the reason why this Golden Angel had turned into the dark, forbiddingman who had just left his office. It was a real mystery.