"Previously on Defiance..." "I don't believe Rahm Tak will ever release Alak alive." "A fully functional Omec warship could destroy the entire Votanis Collective." "T'Evgin needs to die." "So long as that madman has the power to expose us, we must obey his commands." "Is that poison?" "I'll fill a hidden needle and inject the Omec during coitus." "Why do you want me dead?" "Actually, I don't." "I need to know I can count on you." "You had him." "And if you hadn't have choked," "Rahm Tak could be a cooling corpse right now, and Defiance would be a whole lot safer." "You're benched." "You're gonna stay here with Berlin, you're gonna figure out who planted those explosives." "I'm the lawkeeper now." "Ah!" "Whatever's inside this man's head is killing him." "Ripped By mstoll" "It doesn't look broken." "It'll be fine." "Here, this will help soak up the blood." "Thanks." "Oh, gross, gross, gross." " Is it working?" " Pretty much." "Did you hit him back?" "Are you kidding?" "What is wrong with you?" "He's the biggest kid in the yard." "I hit back, he hits me twice." "It's safer just to fall down." "I didn't raise you to be a doormat." "Oh, so you raised me?" "Don't tell Mom and Dad." "Look." "It's the aliens!" "Get away from the window!" "It's okay, Jon Stewart says they're friendly." "Watch out!" "She's got it." "Josh, help me put this stuff back where it was." "How did you know?" "'Cause that's my sister, Rebecca." "And that little boy is me." "Just put the stuff anywhere." "Where are we?" "It needs to go back where it was." "You know how OCD Mom gets." "How long has he been like this?" "Hour, hour and a half." "We stopped to refuel and he just collapsed." "We need to sedate him." "Top drawer behind you." "You got some moves, kid." "You a doctor?" "I'll take it." "There's a crash cart behind you." "Grab it in case we need to defibrillate." "I'm on it." "What's wrong with him?" "But we're losing him." "Do you think we're dead?" "I don't feel dead." "No." "This is something else." "You never said you had a sister." "Rebecca?" "Josh, you gotta be careful with those rounds." "They're explosive tipped." "I know what I'm doing." "I trained on the T-Nines." "Hey." "Look at me." "Focus." "You're scared and you'd piss yourself if you weren't so exhausted." "So am I." "But Cooper's unit's coming through here tomorrow and they're gonna need this ammo we're guarding." "Okay?" "Hey, those were empty coffins at Mom and Dad's funerals." "Why?" "They were vaporized, and we lost our parents." "I want payback, don't you?" "Yeah." "Yes." "We're Nolans." "We have one rule." "We live together..." "Or we die together." "Good man." "They're getting on the roof!" "I remember this." "No!" "I got incoming." "Take out the I-rath!" "Please, I don't want to fight anymore." "No more fight." "C'mon, Josh." "Waste him and get over here!" "Listen to her!" "Shoot him!" "Please." "Death to the sutso!" "You're all right." "You're gonna be okay." "You have to hold the position." "Everyone's counting on us." "And whatever you do, don't..." "Don't..." "Tell me." "I won't." "I won't." "I promise I won't." "What..." "One single task!" "Kill the Omec!" "I poisoned him with enough ZWIM-bo to kill a bell beast." "But is the Omec dead?" "No." "He's at home, smelling my wife on his fingers and chuckling about how he cuckolded Datak Tarr!" "I doubt T'Evgin knows your name." ""Incompetence" is not a word I normally associate with you." "Or perhaps there's something deeper going on here?" "Deeper?" "What's that supposed to mean?" "Now look what you've done." "You've woken the baby." "Hello, wee one." "Aw!" "Grandma Stahma loves purple-enchanter penis so much she's forgotten all about your daddy Alak." "That's beneath you." "And now Grandpa Datak has to go out and put a bullet in the enchanter's brain... to compensate for Grandma's embarrassing female weakness." "Have you quite finished?" "Was there more you wanted to say?" "Shooting the Omec is a stupid plan." "Why is that?" "I learned that Omec become stronger as they age." "T'Evgin is much, much, older than he appears." "I doubt a sniper bullet will do more than irritate him." "I'm happy to put that theory to a test." "An irritated Omec is likely to hunt you down, hang you from your ankles and separate you from your spinal column." "I'd like to see him try." "As would I." "But it won't help Alak." "How does any of this help Alak?" "Rahm Tak is Casti." "He was raised on the same old enchanter stories we were." "He fears T'Evgin, which is why he ordered us to kill him." "If I can get T'Evgin on our side, we can exploit that fear to secure Alak's release." "And why would T'Evgin help us?" "Must I draw you a chart?" "Contrary to what you think, darling, your chivo is not magic." "On many occasions you've said different." "You have to trust me." "Of course." "Always." "Nobody said stop." "The gun seller has arrived." "Finally." "Welcome." "Your reputation precedes you, of course." "I am General Rahm Tak of the Votanis Collective." "These are Lieutenants Bebe, Geeze." "Pleasure." "Please, join me for some wine." "Long trip." "Back to work." "Yes, Boss." "How bad is it?" "He needs a machine to breath and I'm keeping his heart beating with drugs." "And he's not responding to painful stimuli." "Essentially, he's brain dead." "Is this true?" "It seems that way." "You're asking Dr. Dolittle?" "Suddenly my word not good enough?" "I just want to make sure everything possible is being done to save his life." "Wait, what's going on?" "Amanda's afraid that I might try to kill Nolan." "Why the hell would you do that?" "Because a couple weeks ago, the two of them held me down and skinned me alive?" "C'mon." "You're kidding, right?" "That didn't happen." "You're hazing me, right?" "Welcome to the suck, jarhead." "Whoa!" "Hang on." "Look at this." "Brain activity." "Out of nowhere." "And it's not human." "There's a mass in Nolan's medial temporal lobe." "I think it's arktech." "How is that possible?" "It's got to be from the sleeper pod that he shared with Irisa." "She's got a scar just like this." "I've got a theory." "Get Irisa in here." "Yeah, well, I don't know where she is." "Well, if you want a shot at saving Nolan, find her!" "Now!" "Hey." "Have you seen Irisa?" "We're not exactly soul sisters these days." "Well, we have to find her or Nolan's gonna die." "Shtak, shtak, shtak." "Where did you go?" "Help me." "How did you know?" "I'm sorry about Rebecca." "I don't want to talk about it." "She seemed like she really..." "I said I don't want to talk about it." "It should have been me that died." "Don't say that." "She shouldn't have even been there." "I thought the war would help me prove something." "Make me a man, or something romantic like that." "And then I got there, the reality was anything but romantic, noble or even good." "Becca knew it would be like that." "So she enlisted, she made sure she was assigned to my unit so she could protect me." "She was brave." "She didn't care what anyone else thought." "She's the type of girl who'd rather be under a car fixing it than in the backseat with a guy." "All her friends loved Taylor Swift, but she lived for Johnny Cash." "There was nothing about her I didn't want to be." "If I had been stronger, she'd be alive." "It's been exactly one year since the fateful night that turned the tide of the Pale Wars." "The night' when every alien ship all over the world exploded." "Many crashed to Earth..." "When are we?" "This is the shaming rack." "A Storm Divide watering hole." "Making space travel an impossibility." "The majority of the wreckage remained in orbit and were dubbed the Arkbelt." "The tragic event could not have come at a more opportune time for the Earth Military Coalition." "Since they were in danger of losing the war one year ago." "This is the one-year anniversary of Arkfall." "Every human I knew got plastered this night." "We spoke to EMC ambassador Olfin Tennety." "And here's what she had to say." "Over the last year, one thing has become clear." "We have broken the back of the Votanis Collective." "They are no longer capable of maintaining their war effort and this has forced them to the bargaining table." "War is over!" "Yeah!" "To quote a great Earth leader," ""Peace is at hand."" "But not soon enough for this guy, huh?" "Too true." "I miss you on the front lines, No-Man." "How you been paying the bills?" "You know how some of that ark wreckage still falls from space to Earth?" "This guy Varus pays top dollar for arktech." "So you're one of those scavenger guys, with a little girl in tow?" "The official term is arkhunter, my friend, and the kid loves it." "Right, she can climb into all the tiny spaces I can't reach." "Watch out folks, father of the year coming through, huh?" "Hey, I'm not her dad." "I just helped her out of a bad situation." "Arkfall." "I gotta go." "I'll settle up." "You got the last one, J-Turk." "I got this one." "Earth is for humans!" "See you, brother." "I have no memory of this night." "Did it really happen?" " Kiddo..." " Don't Kiddo me!" "Did it happen?" "It was a different time." "Hmm." "Well, the daily special seems to be scrambled brains." "What?" "There's an arktech cluster in Irisa's head, just like Nolan's." "And you want to know the kicker?" "The minute you brought her in here, both their vitals stabilized." "And Nolan's breathing on his own." "That's good, right?" "That means they're getting better." "Actually, it's bad." "Very bad." "Votan sleeper pods were not designed for humans." "Sharing one forced the pod to make some modifications to keep it from killing Nolan." "What modifications?" "The pod physically tethered Nolan and Irisa's brains." "It kept them both alive, but the brains grew interdependent, like organs on conjoined human twins." "Right." "Both twins can survive, so long as they remain attached." "Exactly." "The Omec severed the attachment when it took Nolan and Irisa out of the pod." "Now the arktech adapted itself, keeping the connection going through a spread-spectrum signal." "Like Bluetooth?" "You're adorable." "But sure, why not, let's call it" ""Bluetooth for the brain."" "When you and Nolan left town, the connection broke." "But instead of a dropped signal, they got brain damage." "Bringing them closer together reestablished the link and stabilized their conditions." "But unfortunately it is temporary." "The arktech is growing out of control." "What can we do to save their lives?" "Well, I need to open them up and cut the arktech out." "Well, you've done this surgery before, right?" "Best not to dwell on that." "My hands are freezing." "I can barely hold the ax." "Just give me a second to warm them." "On your feet." "Let's go." "Just give me a second to warm them, man." "Bebe!" "Geeze!" "Let's start unloading these crates." "Favi Tak, good news with our guest?" "Oh, he won't stop talking, or drinking my wine." "Right now, he and his Bio-men are subjecting the men to old-earth show tunes." "He's the most disgusting human I've ever encountered and, trust me, I've been around." "He would sell his weaponry to anyone who has enough scrip." "No honor." "No loyalty to his fellow humans." "I'm tempted to kill him, just to make the planet a better place." "I'll deliver the death stroke myself." "That's kind of you, Bebe, thank you." "No." "We may need to re-supply." "It's better if he leaves with a fat profit and we get our guns." "Defiance won't know what hit them." "Don't gloat, Geeze, it's premature." "A lot of things have to go right for this plan to work." "Including the element of surprise." "That's essential." "I need to get back." "I'm gonna find out if the carnivorous plant eats Audrey." "What's wrong?" "I'm sorry." "I thought this would be a welcome diversion." "But my thoughts drift to my son in that VC camp." "My husband insists I carry out their demands." "Do you really believe my death would win his release?" "I fear nothing short of a miracle will save him." "It's strange." "When I close my eyes I can only picture Alak as a little boy." "I keep remembering this one day." "The humans have this ancient ritual called a "picnic."" "Have you come across the term yet?" "No." "You eat outdoors among the flies and rodents." "Alak was very young, and insisted we try it." "I confess it was fun, in a dirty way." "Until we encountered a hellbug skitterling." "Alak thought it was cute and wanted to play with it." "But I grabbed him in my arms and I ran." "My husband tackled the beast." "Killed it with his charge blade." "Impressive." "I held my son close, and I whispered over and over again," ""I've got you." ""I will always protect you."" "Now I realize that was a lie." "I wish someone would give Rahm Tak the same treatment my husband gave that hellbug." "Someone strong." "Someone fearless." "Someone like me." "It would be so easy for you." "The sight of an Omec ship over their camp would terrify them." "They would submit to any demand." "Or they, being resourceful and duplicitous, would concoct some trick to disable my ship." "We could take precautionary steps." "Kindzi and I are alone." "We face the extinction of our entire race." "Our only hope of finding other Omec survivors is with that ship." "I would not do anything to put it in harm's way." "Not even for you." "It seems the mood has soured." "Hmm." "We got a problem." "What?" "Every time I move a piece of arktech from Nolan's brain, the arktech in Irisa's brain grows larger to compensate." "I need to figure out a way of removing the arktech from both of their brains at the exact same time." "Okay." "Well, we have two doctors, so we could do two surgeries at the same time." "What do you say, slick?" "Any experience doing cranial nano-surgery?" "I once removed a tumor from a cat's brain." "And it lived." "For, like, a year and a half." "Talk about healing hands." "All right." "Fine." "What other options do we have?" "Well, I need a surgery module." "One that would allow me to operate on two patients with one set of hands." "Okay, well, where can we get one of these?" "Nowhere close." "But I'm pretty sure that I can make one." "All I need is an Omec drone." "That a problem?" "What are you doing here?" "You have no right to intrude here!" "Where's your father?" "And did not tell me where." "Leave this place or I will make you leave." "Nolan and Irisa will both die if you turn us away." "Please." "Remember, Nolan fought for you." "He saved your life." "From the gunshot wounds inflicted by you." "Don't punish him for my mistakes." "What is it you need?" "If I can interface with one of your drones, it can perform one surgery while I do the other." "And steal our technology, no doubt." "Is that your plan, crafty little Indogene?" "Do you play both sides?" "See, Mandy and I have this bet going..." "Shut up." "Please, Kindzi." "I can't lose him." "I will help you." "But then the scales are balanced." "We owe you people nothing." "Understood." "Remember this, Indogene." "I am a skilled technobiologist." "You try anything tricky when you're connected to my system," "I will see it and I will kill you quickly." "See, I was gonna kill you slowly." "I like a little bit of foreplay." "Shall we get started, ladies?" "Here, Spot." "Come to Mama." "Good ball." "So far so good." "Why did you keep me if you hated us so much?" "Because when I looked at you, I didn't see an enemy combatant." "I saw a scared kid who needed my help." "Besides, you were different." "Different how?" "Well, you were born on Earth." "You weren't like the Votans we fought in the war." "Are you saying you adopted me because I wasn't alien enough to hate?" "No." "Because I am a Votan." "No different from the millions that died." "Yeah." "But you were too young to experience the horror." "You never saw the years of the worst of the Pale Wars." "Don't kill me." "I don't wanna die." "He came after us because of the bounty on our heads." "Please." "I have a family." "What is this?" "I'll tell people that I never found you." "I don't think we're seeing these things randomly." "Lotta scrip if he brings us in." "You think he's just gonna give up and go away?" "Please." "Let me go." "That guy over here." "They called him adolo." "That's Casti for "brother"." "He's honor-bound to avenge his family." "There's no way he's gonna pack it up and go home." "So maybe one night he comes up on us, slits our throats." "Is that what you want?" "No." "So what do we do?" "Follow through?" "Follow through." "The Casti heart's on the other side." "Before God..." "I humble myself." "As we all must humble ourselves before God." "I know that wasn't easy for you, kid." "I'm proud of you." "All right, so let's get this roller packed up and get outta here." "I'm sorry." "Don't tell me I didn't grow up with horror." "Come on." "Move!" "Or I'll do you both." "I want you to know that I understand." "You have to put your own family first." "I appreciate that." "Have you tried phall vindaloo yet?" "No." "You are in for a treat." "This way." "Sneaky bitch!" "Alak!" "Why are you unattended?" "I begged Sagyan for a break." "I couldn't take the smell of those bodies." "Well, I'm gonna have to talk to Sagyan about his leniency." "Odd, though, the smell bothers you." "You were married to a human." "I'm curious." "Did you have to scrub really hard to get the smell off your GWA-va-yo?" "I know this place." "I'm sorry." "What?" "About the bounty hunter." "I didn't know it affected you so much." "I'm not sorry for the lesson, though." "You would have been dead years ago," "I hadn't a taught you how to survive." "Hey, kiddo." "What's wrong?" "You can't sleep?" "Too cold?" "Come on up." "Come on." "Hop in." "That's it." "Okay." "Was that real?" "Something's happening." "Was it real?" "Did it actually happen?" "Thought about it." "I don't believe you." "Believe what you want." "No, I remember that night." "That was the first time I thought everything was gonna be okay." "It was the first time we started to feel like a family." "It happened." "Because I was scared of you." "I was scared of you." "They're awake." "Thank God." "How are you feeling?" "Yeah." "Dizzy." "Irisa, how are you feeling?" "Shtako." "All right, move slow." "You scared me." "I don't know what I would've done without you." "You should never have allowed them in here." "Where is this Indogene now?" "She took Nolan and Irisa back to town for more tests." "I should strip off your skin and feed it to my loom!" "You're my commander." "It is your prerogative." "Don't you understand the danger?" "You allowed a shape-taker to access our network!" "An Indogene!" "She could have seized control of our drones!" "The network is a two-way street." "She was so busy with the surgery, she failed to notice that I copied her cerebral source-print." "You got it all?" "Everything." "This particular shape-taker, Yewll, is smart, even by Indogene standards." "Her expertise will prove valuable once the Dread Harvest begins." "Very resourceful." "But also reckless." "Destroy it." "Why?" "Creating new Indogenes would turn Defiance against us." "We're Omec." "We feed upon the lesser races." "We do not fear them!" "I fear anything that will disrupt the flow of gulanite and prevent us from repairing the Tsuroz!" "You are young." "Two bullets from a human almost killed you." "Have you forgotten this?" "I will never forget that." "Follow my orders." "Destroy it." "Of course, commander." "Does your head hurt?" "A little." "I can taste something." "Burnt tires." "Yeah." "That's it." "So." "If you're that scared of me, why didn't you just sink the knife and be done with it?" "Because I'm not you." "Something pulled these memories from both our minds to understand that." "So we could both see the lie, that's kept us together for all these years." "What lie?" "I never lied to you." "You taught me to believe we're the same." "Yeah, we both grew up with blood on our hands." "It made you okay with killing." "But not me." "I hated it then, and I hate it now." "I think that's why I didn't stab you." "I have to leave." "There's no place for me here." "Not with Rahm Tak coming." "If I stay, I'll have to hurt people." "And if I don't, I'll get you killed." "Don't you worry about me." "You can't protect me and the town at the same time." "I know what you have to do." "It takes a killer to stop a killer." "I know what you have to be." "But I don't want to be here for it." "Okay." ""Live together, die together"" "works when you have to keep on fighting." "It totally sucks in real life." "There's a land coach coming tomorrow." "Well, you let me know where you end up." "Maybe when this is all over I can join you there." "Maybe." "I just finished going through your post-op scans." "I didn't want to say anything until I was sure." "Sure about what?" "I wasn't able to remove the arktech." "So I repaired it." "Strengthened the connection." "You two will remain stable so long as you don't separate again." "Meaning?" "Meaning if you get too far apart you'll strain the connection, excruciating pain, killing you both, the whole megillah." "How far is too far?" "I don't know." "A mile." "Maybe more." "Why the long faces?" "You two are practically joined at the hip anyway." ""Geez, thanks, Doc Yewll, for saving us from a certain death."" "Hey, no problem, kids." "Any time." "Grab a lollipop on your way out." "Go away." "But not too far, obviously." "What is Rahm Tak like in person?" "Excuse me?" "I shame myself." "The question was impertinent." "No, it's all right, Andina." "Why do you ask?" "I saw his image the day the arch fell." "He's very handsome." "Dangerous looking." "Yes." "I prefer my men dangerous, don't you?" "Generally, they prefer me." "Some of the other servants think humans have brought all of this upon themselves." "All of what?" "The righteous wrath of the Votanis Collective." "If humans had been better about sharing their planet then we wouldn't hate them." "That's Rahm Tak's whole message." "There's more to it than that." "You're in shock." "You killed Christie." "Oh, no, I did it to save your..." "There's always an excuse." "You've never told the truth." "Ripped By mstoll"