Chapter 22 Liam
Twelve faces stared back at me.
I recognized maybe half of them. Carlos, still built like a tank, arms crossed.
Jenkins, thinner than I remembered, leaning against the wall.
Patterson had transferred out—Captain Morrison had mentioned that when I'd called to accept the promotion.
The rest were new. Younger guys who probably knew my name from stories, none of them good.
Morrison stood beside me in the apparatus bay, hands clasped behind his back. Morning briefing. First shift under new command.
No mention of why I'd left. No acknowledgment of the elephant taking up half the damn room.
Morrison looked at me and nodded. This was my show now.
I stepped forward. "Glad to be back."
Carlos shifted his weight. Jenkins's expression didn't change. One of the newer guys—Thompson—glanced at another rookie, then back at me. The energy in the room was off. Polite, but cold. Waiting.
They knew. Of course they knew.
I could ignore it. Pretend everything was normal, run the briefing, let time smooth over the awkwardness. That's probably what they expected.
But that felt like the old move… the coward's move.
"Look," I said. "I know this is awkward. I left this station a year ago under circumstances that weren’t great. Not because I couldn’t do the job…
but because I crossed a line that should never have been crossed.
I let something personal interfere with the chain of command, and it hurt this crew.
It hurt people who trusted me to know better. "
I paused, scanning the room. "I’m not here to justify it or ask anyone to forget. I just want to earn back the right to stand here."
Carlos's arms loosened slightly, and Jenkins straightened up from the wall.
"I'm not asking you to believe I'm different.
I'm not asking you to like me." I looked at each of them.
"If I were in your shoes, I'd probably be skeptical too.
But I'm here to do the job and lead this station the way it deserves to be led. I’m here to have your back on every call. That's what I'm about."
Silence. But... different this time. Less cold.
"Questions?" I asked.
No one spoke.
Morrison cleared his throat. "Alright. Shift assignments are posted. First rig inspection at 0900. Dismissed."
The crew dispersed. Some faster than others. Carlos lingered for a second, gave me a nod—not quite approval, but acknowledgment—then headed toward the engine.
Morrison clapped my shoulder once. "Not bad, Sullivan. Not bad at all."
Then he left too, and I was alone in the bay with the weight of what I'd just done settling in my chest.
This was my station now.
I just had to prove I deserved it.
The first week was a blur of routine.
Rig inspections at 0900. Equipment checks.
Inventory logs. Training drills where I stood back and watched the crew work, making notes on who was solid and who needed extra attention.
Thompson had good instincts but second-guessed himself.
Jones was fast but sloppy with his gear.
Jenkins still moved like he'd been doing this for twenty years, because he had.
I worked alongside them when I could. Helped Jones restock medical supplies. Ran ladder drills with the rookies. Made coffee at 0600 when I got there before everyone else, which was most days.
All small things, but I was showing up.
Carlos started nodding to me in the mornings. Jenkins asked my opinion on a training schedule. Thompson stopped looking uncomfortable when I walked into a room.
Progress.
The paperwork was worse than I'd expected.
I sat in Morrison's office—my office now—staring at budget reports and maintenance schedules and personnel files that needed my signature. Shift rotations, equipment requisitions, a complaint from a neighboring station about response time protocol.
This was half the job. Hell, maybe more. The parts nobody saw.
I worked through it methodically, making notes, flagging things to ask Morrison about during his last few transition weeks. He was still coming in twice a week, making sure I didn't drown.
After hours of this, the words on the page blurred. I pushed back from the desk and went for more coffee. The pot was half-burnt, the kind that sat too long on the warmer, but it was hot and bitter and did the job.
By the time I got back to my office, the station had gone quiet. Late evening. The silence hit harder than the noise ever did. No alarms, no chatter… just the hum of the vents and the sound of my own thoughts creeping in.
Piper’s bakery was ten minutes away. I’d driven past it once this week, by accident. Saw the lights on, took my feet off the gas for a second, but kept driving.
Piper had made it clear she didn't want me in her life, and the least I could do was respect that.
I went back to the budget reports.
Thompson knocked on the open door around 2200 hours.
"Captain? Got a minute?"
I looked up from the shift schedule I was revising. "Yeah, come in."
He stepped inside, looking uncomfortable. He was younger than I'd realized—maybe twenty-three, twenty-four. He had that fresh out of the academy energy, the kind that made you eager and terrified in equal measure.
"What's up?" I asked.
Thompson hesitated, then closed the door behind him. "This isn't about work. Not exactly. I just…” He stopped. "I didn't know who else to ask."
I set down my pen and gestured to the chair across from my desk. "Sit."
He did.
Whatever this was, it mattered. I could see it in the way he was holding himself, the way he couldn't quite meet my eyes.
This was why I'd come back. Not for redemption or closure or to prove something to people who didn't owe me anything. I’d come back for this—to help the crew, to support these guys, to lead in a way that actually meant something.
To stop making everything about myself.
"Talk to me," I said.
And he did.