Don't Break My Heart, Mickey (Part 1)
Posted on 07 Dec 2025 @ 11:28am by Lieutenant Commander Roxanne "Rox" Matamoros Garcia & Lieutenant Michael "Mickey" Ballentyne
894 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
Opening Transmission
Location: Shuttlecraft Sagan deep in the Beta Quadrant
Timeline: 2258: Previously
Tags: Ballentyne, Foster, Matamoros, Proteus
This is the first of a two-part backstory exploring the Proteus crew under Captain Collingwood. It develops Matamoros, who has to handle a crisis and elaborates on the friendship between Ballentyne and Foster as they are about to say farewell in our current timeline. It is not directly relevant to our story and can be skipped.
ON:
[ Shuttlecract al-Biruni ]
[ Beta Quadrant: Iapetus 4-B ]
A photon torpedo exploded into the lower portions of the shuttle and the pilot’s console exploded in a fountain of sparks and the pilot fell from her chair unconscious or perhaps dead. Engines failed. The shuttle fell into a tailspin and the mountainous terrain of the planetoid below flew towards the windshield.
Mickey tapped at his console re-routing helm control and frantically trying to make comms contact with Proteus. “Al-Biruni to Proteus. We are under attack and non-responsive. Repeat, al-Biruni down.” He surveyed the limited sensor data for a reachable landing site and tried to wrest control of the craft with thrusters.
Tree and snow covered mountainside filled the windshield and Mickey braced for impact. The al-Biruni blazed a trail across the sky and crashed down.
Sometime later Mickey crawled clear of the wreckage of the craft and watched a green craft graciously execute a landing a couple of klicks away. That's not good... OK... basic training. Priority one: get out and get hidden! Dazed he looked around before taking a couple of deep breaths crawling back into the wreck to salvage what he could, ignoring an aching pain in his left leg.
[ USS Proteus: Bridge ]
[ Meanwhile ]
The unconscious body of Captain James Collingwood was carried towards sickbay and Lieutenant Commander Roxanne Matamoros Garcia gingerly climbed into the Captain’s Chair. “Helm: Get us out of here” she bellowed as the vessel shuddered and sparks flew from wherever they came from overhead. The Proteus, which had been on a relatively uninteresting mineral survey mission, had suddenly come under heavy fire from three unknown assailant vessels that did not respond to hails.
“What about the away team?” Asked Foster from the Science station.
Matamoros spun round in the chair and addressed the Science Officer. “We’ll have to come back for them. We can’t fight our way through right now.” She sighed. “Get me options Foster.” Turning to face the viewscreen she called for a damage report.
[ Beta Quadrant: Iapetus 4-B ]
[ Later ]
Ballentyne had managed to find shelter in a cave several kilometres away from his crash site. He had strapped a salvage comms relay to his back and walked, dragging his left leg, over hard ground in an attempt to disguise his trail. He laid out his meagre possessions: phaser, medkit, a couple of ration packs and the large comms relay and gave in to exhaustion.
When he awoke it was dark. He had no idea how much time had passed. The air was thin and smelled faintly of ozone; strange, crystalline growths lined the cold, wet walls. They glowed faintly. Had Mickey had the energy he would have been fascinated, as it was he grimly stared at the dead comms rely he had ripped from the Al-Biruni and wondered how to coax it back to life.
[ USS Proteus: Bridge ]
[ Meanwhile ]
Matamoros regarded the map of the Iapetus system on the viewscreen, with a face like a pitbull wearing red lipstick. “Probability of success?”
Foster bit her lip. “Forty-eight percent.”
“Not enough. I can’t risk the ship for two men, Foster. Get me to sixty and I will green-light it.” She looked at the screen again. “Do we even know if our people survived the crash?”
Foster returned to her console silently.
[ Beta Quadrant: Iapetus 4-B ]
[ Later ]
The comms unit that Micky had coaxed to life with most of the power cell from his phaser chirped to life. “Mickey… are you there?” the tinny voice of Foster came through the jury-rigged speaker.
Mickey crawled over. “I’m here!” Any sort of formality was gone. He heard cheers behind him from the Bridge crew. “But Miller didn’t make it.” Mickey gave over his location.
Just then his tricorder bleeped, registering atypical movement within its scanning perimeter. Mickey flicked off the comm unit, grabbed his phaser and tricorder and crept outside, hiding in the shrubbery metres beyond the cave entrance.
[ USS Proteus: Bridge ]
The comm channel went dead and the Proteus’s perimeter sensor lit up, the spinning triangular ships of their assailant had discovered their hiding place on the edge of the system. “They’ve found us” intoned Foster.
Matamoros ordered the ship to come about and prepare to engage. She stepped out of the Captain’s chair and took a step towards the viewscreen, her arm outstretched as if she was about to punch the oncoming vessel. “Time to show our new friends just who they are dealing with.”
Foster kept working away at her console. “Don’t break my heart, Mickey”, she muttered looking into the periscope scanner before her.
OFF:
Lieutenant Michael "Mickey" Ballentyne
Chief Science Officer, USS Proteus
also writing as:
Lieutenant Commander Roxanne "Rox" Matamoros Garcia
Executive Officer, USS Proteus
and
Lieutenant Commander Iris Foster
Former Chief Science Officer, USS Proteus
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