Trooper CT-492 stood rigid on the Outer Rim outpost, dust swirling around his boots. His helmet comms crackled—routine static from the sandstorms—until a voice cut through, cold and mechanical. “We are the Borg.” His breath hitched. The words hung, then drowned in a hiss of white noise.
He tapped the side of his helmet. Nothing. Just the wind howling past crumbling spires. “Command, you copy?” he muttered, voice tight. Silence. His fingers twitched toward his blaster, a reflex from years of conditioning—loyalty forged in Kamino’s sterile vats. But this wasn’t a Separatist trick. Something deeper gnawed at him, a splinter of doubt he’d never named.
“We are the Borg,” it whispered again, faint, like a memory he didn’t own. His chest tightened—abandonment, an old wound from a life he wasn’t meant to question. The Empire didn’t leave men behind, they said. Yet here he was, alone, a number on a forgotten rock.
A shadow loomed beyond the ridge. Not a Star Destroyer’s wedge, but a cube, edges glowing green against the bruised sky. His blaster felt useless, a child’s toy. “Identify yourself,” he barked, more to himself than the void. No answer—just the hum, steady, pulling at his mind.
He stumbled back, boots scraping stone. The hail wasn’t a threat; it was a promise. Assimilation. Perfection. A cure for the emptiness he’d buried under orders. For a moment, he didn’t run. The wind carried his whisper, “Who am I without them?”
Then static roared, swallowing everything—his voice, his fear, the Borg’s call. When it cleared, he was alone again. Or was he?
