The depth of stars is so great he could fall for a thousand years, and still not see them come closer. The depth out there is so cold, so void, so tempting. If only the ship would turn he would see the crescent earth, the crescent moon. A little further out and the rings of Saturn would shimmer in the distant sunlight. But here, now, all he can see is stars and darkness.

How close he had come to destroying all of that. Not the moon, the earth, the stars, but all the life on his planet, everything that he has always held most dear. Hasn't the protection of life always been one of his greatest motivations for taking this great cruiser through the endless reaches of space? Not just the thousand-odd souls on board his ship, but all those people he uses his ship to help and defend.

So close. So close…

He feels as if he's falling apart. He can't hold it all together, can't hold it all inside. His chest is a whirling mass of feelings, flashes of memory, of horror and pain. So much in his head, but also so much nothing. No voices any more. No purposeful voices in his mind.

The emptiness in his head is so huge that it's unbearable. Unbearable because he hated that hive mind. Unbearable because the voices always there in the centre of his brain had become a blanket of security. No need to worry. No need to think. We are Borg. We will guide you. We will craft your world. When he had been cut adrift from his own human collective, they had been the only framework around him.

When he had screamed inside his mind and tried so hard to fight, the voices had pushed back, soothing him like the strong hug of a mother trying to soothe a tantrum. We are Borg. We are one. It would have been so much easier to let himself go limp, and allow the voices to carry him along. But he had fought, and fought, and fought. He had fought until he was exhausted, but the Borg carapace around his body, the Borg implants, the Borg voices, had not let him collapse. It had been an endless torture, and he had not been allowed to collapse.

There's a rage inside him. He wants to smash his fists against the transparent aluminium and have it shatter like glass. He wants to let his body glide out into the vacuum. His lungs would burst. His blood would boil. And it would be quiet. No memory of that droning Borg voice. No memory of the pain.

At first it had been utter horror. He can't remember exactly what happened, only that he had felt his cells dissolving in the beam, and then he had been unconscious. Then – waking. A pervading sensation of cold. He had grown used to the cold. Cool because it was more efficient, better for the mechanised parts, better for the communal whole. Everything was about what was best for the communal whole. We are Borg. We are one. We must equalise our environmental conditions to be best for the whole.

How he had rebelled in utter disgust. Something from a nightmare, from a horror movie, it had seemed. Immobile, naked, on the cold plinth as those half-cyborgs stood over him, silent and intent. The only voices had been inside his head. At first there had been no voices at all, and then they had connected his language centres, and the voices had been there, suddenly, with no gentle awakening. Just the voices. We are Borg. Your uniqueness has been assimilated. Your thoughts are part of the whole.

It had felt like being stripped bare and paraded in front of a crowd of staring people. Even though none of them cared, none of them were allowed to care, it had felt like that. It had been dehumanising, having his every bodily function linked up to machines, so that he could no longer function in an animal way. He had worried at first, absurdly it had felt, about incontinence. He had worried about how and where he would use the toilet. But no, they took care of all of that. They took care of everything that made him alive. His heartbeat was regulated by them. His digestive system was almost entirely bypassed. His arm, his good right arm, had disappeared into one of their enhancements. He had no longer been human at all. He had started to lose himself piece by piece into a technological invasion that he would never be rid of.

He rests his forehead against the cool window, willing the door chime to stay silent. If someone comes in now he thinks he may scream at them. Even Beverly. Perhaps Beverly most of all. If she comes in right now he will scream at her until his throat is sore. He had missed that, under the Borg; the control of his own voice.

Locutus. It hadn't even been a name. He was the locutus of the Borg; a job title more than anything else. He had been their mouthpiece, a conduit for their intentions. Perhaps that had accorded him a little uniqueness, but in real terms there had been none, any more than a particular bee in a particular hive might have a particular job to do. He had had no more uniqueness beyond that. A tool for a particular job.

Now his vocal cords are his own. Now he can scream into the ether if he wants to, but he can't scream, can't let himself scream, can't let himself break down. Even with the scars still on his body from the removed enhancements, he can't let himself break down.

Oh, that moment, on the Enterprise, still in the grip of the Borg technology, when Data had managed to reach his mind. He had never expected to feel such a surge of gratitude and relief on contacting an android mind, but he had felt it then. It had felt like coming home. Reaching out and holding onto Data's wrist had felt like coming home, even if it were android skin and an android skeleton beneath. Like being released from a coma, and seeing the face of a friend. It had been like that. How hard he had fought against the controlling voice of the Borg to reach his own voice; to say that one word, sleep.

How can he forgive himself? Did that one word erase everything he gave up to the Borg? Can telling Data how to defeat them make up for all they took from his mind? They took it against his will. He knows that. But still the guilt is a great, surging thing that comes in waves, smashing through all of his thoughts and effacing everything in their path. How close they'd come to taking Earth. If Riker hadn't sent in that team, Picard would still be Borg, and Earth would be gone. They had come so close.

He thinks of the vineyards of home. He had always looked on them with a familiar scorn. Now he imagines them left untended, the fruit rotting and falling from the vine, the water systems neglected, the plants withering and dying. He suddenly feels such a surge of need for home, to touch the living soil of home. He has been broken, utterly broken apart. He is like a smashed vessel, scattered on the ground. There must be some way to heal his shattered mind. Perhaps what he really needs is his mother's arms, but he can't have that. He can never have that. He can have the earth instead, and the warmth of Earth's sun on his back and head. Those little human things.