Family concerns

Posted on Sat Jun 29th, 2024 @ 2:44am by Commander Antonia 'Tony" Stoffels

Mission: Those who are left behind
Location: earth

Commander Antonia Stoffels XO

Toni was glad when she made it past the security to go and see her family. Things were looking a bit better. Her uncle and grandfather were out of the woods now and it was a relief that they would all survive. In the end only her grandmother had died. But the family had taken a heavy blow. Her uncle’s recovery would take many months and two of their daughters had been severely injured as well.

During her recent shore leave she had been giving emotional support but also discussed how to keep them all safe. Uncle Mike had agreed to take a leave of absence from his job to look after his husband and daughters and they would be taken to another highly secured location now that they were all off the critical list. Toni had every confidence that it would work well. Uncle Mike would work with their security and obey the rules. And as a psychiatrist he was well balanced to look after his husband and kids. Besides, he was not afraid to ask for help with his own mental health. Not as stubborn as the Sorrels that one.

She still worried about her parents who had refused to come back to earth and were still at the starbase. Her dad’s security had been upped again but he was doing his job as marine sector commander and was getting too much exposure for her liking. But there were not many people who could tell him what to do and his immediate superior had refused to recall the general.

That left granddad. His recovery was coming along nicely but he was trying everyone’s patience. As her grandparents had been divorced for years, he did not seem to be grieving for the mother of his children very much. Toni however knew him well enough to realise that deep down he was. THe old man was just too stubborn to admit it. In fact she was the only one he listened to on occasion. Moxley had always had a difficult relationship with his one remaining son and her own mum was not diplomatic enough to tell him what’s what. And of course her mum was on the starbase with her dad.

There were great concerns about the retired marshal of marines and his ability to keep his head down now that he was mobile again. In fact she had just come out of a meeting with his security team in which they expressed their doubts of being able to handle the old man and Toni was running out of time with only hours before they would depart earth and not return for a long time. She was running out of options.