Note: Story takes place post-Season 1 finale with the exception of Nolan and Irisa's storyline. For the sake of my AU just forget about Nolan's resurrection and Irisa's belly flop into that artifact portal thingy. Title originated from the famous soliloquy in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Dedicated to: BeringWells, natashalovestv, gaymerlady

"I went to a box room at the top of the house and locked myself in, in order to be alone with my aching miseries."

- - H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds

High above the Earth in the outer space there was a wasteland. The wreckage floated as all things do in space: weightless and indefinite. It would continue to make revolutions, orbited by shrapnel and debris until pulled in by the Earth's gravitational force.

Soon one such fragment spun off from its Ark Belt counterparts. Its shape was a cylinder with a flat bottom for easy storage alongside its clones. It was a container sealed, though bent at its corners and edges crumpled over like wilted paper. After years of bumping against debris like a slow motion pin ball the small chamber remained unspoiled from the inside. Untouched by space and time.

The well-intact debris hurtled end over end towards the Earth. The planet's atmosphere scorched the surface without mercy, leaving an incinerating trail of gray. The copper coating burned to such an intensity that it glowed a beautiful sunset orange. It's heavy plated material melted, compressed, and caved to the pressure. Three thousand degree heat attacked the integrity of its hull. Its identification markings grew distorted. Any remaining clues to its origins lay sheathed within as its last coating of letters wore away…

W re ouse 32

"You're telling me this hunk of junk has been floatin' around space for who knows how many years and had a human inside it? And they're still alive?!"

"Am I speaking Indo? Of course they're still alive! I just came from watching her heave into a bucket."

"It's a woman?"

"The most woman I've laid eyes on, human or Votan. Hey!"

Irisa's knife hand stayed. She tipped her head looking from the two inch blade on his throat to his wide eyes.

"It's a joke," he said.

"You know I don't like… jokes."

He swallowed as the weapon withdrew. At a safe distance he regained enough courage to roll his eyes. "No, you just don't get them the first time."

She elbowed him good in the ribs.

"This sounds like the Gordon McClintock episode all over again. You know what that means."

"Strict interrogation and observation."

Nolan glanced at the bronze skinned Irathient. God help him, he loved the girl. She was just as much a superior deputy as she was a superior daughter.

"This time no mistakes," he said. "We might be able to trust Doc's scans this time, but that doesn't mean we don't have an imposter on our hands. Humans are just as capable of infiltration as Indo-sapiens. And secrecy is everything. If this gets out, word will spread on the streets like razor rain. And with Datak in his brand spankin' new elected seat I can tell you there's only one way this will go down."

"His way," Tommy said. He shouldered his shotgun for good measure.

Nolan nodded. "Datak's way."

"If Nolan thinks he can hide a thimble from me he should find another career."

"The scruffy lawkeeper works for the town. And you are the town."

"I have eyes everywhere, even before I became mayor. His efforts to evade me are an insult."

"My dear," Stahma Tarr slid her hands over the shoulders of her husband and down his lapels, "you have only to lift a finger and gain what you require. The secret Nolan harbors is as much yours as it is Defiance's. I'm sure someone will see reason to hand it over after a swift use of your elected power."

"No," Datak's voice was a hammer, low and exacting enough to make his wife cower. She indeed shrank back, but recovered with an unhurried rounding to the front of the mayoral desk. "Why would I be so forthcoming when my past methods worked so well? I have a loyal wife that stands by her husband and who will do his bidding whenever asked. Don't I?"

Stahma bowed her head, uttering a sweet murmur. "Always."

"You will go to Nolan and convince him that this…" his mouth formed a grimace around the horrid tasting word, "… human is of importance to me. Don't worry if he refuses. He will, of course. He would rather you speak to the woman than bring her to my domain."

"I am to extract information from this human."

"Everything." Datak placed his hands on the polished mahogany surface and pushed himself to his feet. "I need to know everything. A lost civilian crosses the stasis net, I know about it. A child sneaks a hand in the cookie jar… an Irathient spits its filth on a piece of fruit… the NeedWant hires a new proprietress…" A long stride had him before his wife. He looked down upon her as her orange eyes remained downcast. "Some scavengers haul in a cryosleep pod with an undamaged human… I. Want. To. Know."

"I assure you, if the human has speaking abilities I will report everything she remembers."

Datak shared her smile and taking Stahma by the shoulders brought her lips to his in a kiss.

"A Casti couldn't ask for a more dutiful wife."

Stahma nodded. When he released her she floated back and turned for the doorway. As she exited the mayor's office the sweet, tranquil face liquefied from what lay beneath. A vague and troubled darkness.

A rust reinforced Dodge Charger came to a rolling stop before the Defiance med center. Its three passengers exited with as little excitement possessed upon entering just moments ago. The approaching matter was sensitive indeed and took sensitive hands. None of the three law keeping personnel were adept in the matters of sensitivity. In fact the closest they ever came to sensitivity training was allowing Casti tradition to continue within Defiance. Not even a scolding from former Mayor Rosewater could stop their disregard for alien customs. Each of them had their own way of dealing with a problem: Nolan and the point of his pistol, Irisa and her knives, and Tommy with his handcuffs.

This time had to be different. This time they had to make an effort to keep the peace without drawing a gun, a knife, or restraints. The town was in a transitional period and on shakier ground than ever before. With Kenya's killer still on the loose, Amanda missing, and Datak in power Defiance was a Terra-sphere waiting to detonate.

"That's her?"

Tommy nodded, but his mystification wasn't shared by the lawkeeper. "Don't you think she has the look of –"

"I wouldn't be quick to brag. We don't know who or what we're dealing with here. And until this woman is identified she doesn't look like anyone. Got it?"

"Sure thing."

Nolan strode further into the med center. It was currently unoccupied save for the Indogene medical examiner and the human. Doctor Meh Yewll hovered over her patient, closing a thigh wound with a scalpel-like cautery tool. A wisp of smoke rose from the glowing blue blade as the instrument hummed. It was not the nasty kind of business Nolan had seen in his years during the Pale Wars. As a soldier he had dealt more wounds than having witnessed them. Yet a wide gash like the one decorating the stranger's thigh would not be any less painful than a prick from the tooth of a monarch.

The lawkeeper came to a noiseless halt at the foot of the bed. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and that included those Liberata-human hybrid girls he came across a while back (what a night that cost him). The woman lay on the cot with her back supported by a few pillows. She was conscious enough to exude a relaxed posture and lucid to a point that her brown eyes shown through. Her face was a porcelain canvas for pretty features. A dainty mouth, high cheekbones, all framed by the finest silk hair Nolan hadn't seen since before the Votan's arrived, before his mother died in a mortar attack. The sight of it, that shocking river of black, had so taken hold of him that his hand twitched to reach out. Instinct proclaimed a test of authenticity, an examination of its weight and lushness. Its color and smoothness. He had to know. He couldn't explain why it meant so much to him or why his eyes stung, but he clenched his hand to his side as if crushing instinct to dust.

The woman's chest rose and fell as she watched the doctor seal her wound. Her stare was hard fixed, leaving Nolan to think she was not in any pain. In fact she seemed to thrive on it, taking an anxious breath and zeroing in on every drone, scrap, and scent of burning flesh the cautery tool gave off. It was a near primal need for stimulation. Spending years locked up in the same metal pod, of course, could do that to anyone.

"Who have we got here, Doc?"

Doc Yewll answered while dressing the wound. "Human of apparent Earth-like origin. Your usual simple structured being."

The remark jumpstarted the dark-haired human as a spark would a downed roller engine. "Excuse me?" she said, her features magnifying to an indignant level.

"And she has a mouth," the doctor said. Her head rose to cast the same insufferable expression displayed since the woman became her patient not two hours ago.

Nolan's hands rested at his hips. "Reminds me of someone I know."

Yewll turned from her finished work and finally met Nolan with a glare of steel. "Watch it."

"I am no simpleton!" The woman crossed her arms. "Do you even know who you're talking to?"

"No," the lawkeeper mirrored the pose with the added differential of a smile, "but I sure would like to be enlightened."

The stranger pressed her lips together and looked away. Whatever exasperations she suffered before were cast away by a proposed introduction.

"Well, so much for a smooth meet and greet."

"This is a waste of time." Irisa shouldered past Tommy and stalked forward. She stopped at the bedside with an imposing air and stood over the woman who was now staring up at her. "Who are you?"

The stranger gave the Irathient a steady once over before narrowing her eyes into the enlarged alien ones. Still examining the young girl, she angled her head to the side as if coming to a conclusion. "I am Helena." It came out with such curtness that it could have passed for obligation.

"Why have you come to Defiance?"

"It was never my intention to come anywhere. My capsule's descent to Earth and its inevitable discovery were sheer happenstance. If I had it my way," the stranger who called herself Helena shot a threatening glare at her doctor, "I would never have woken up from the bronzer."

"Right," Nolan said. "And we should believe you why? How do we know you don't work for Earth Republic? Or the Votanis Collective for that matter?"

"I would calculate you and your friends are in the same boat as my high-spirited doctor here in being unfamiliar with bronzing technology." Her hand brushed invisible lint from her blanketed lap in a show of condescension. "Too archaic for your generation? Or were you too preoccupied in killing each other off to observe the importance of preserving history?"

"Cryogenics has been the principal method of preserving life for decades." Nolan's tone was as gruff as his five o'clock shadow. While it was true the Earth had little to show after years of interspecies war, he had seen enough of it as a soldier to know the bravery and sacrifice that rose above bloodshed. "In fact we had a similar incident not long ago when a young man woke up from hypersleep only to choke our mayor half to death. So you can understand our concern."

"I'm wagering that he was not bronzed?"

"No, but I wouldn't put it past the E-Rep to try alternative tactics."

"Hang on," Tommy cut in with a raised hand, "how do you know about the Pale Wars? You couldn't be aware of what was going on when you were in cryosleep."

Helena's hands fisted the blanket. She was beginning to shake. "I am no spy."

"Like Nolan said, it wouldn't be the first time someone like you claimed the exact same thing. The E-Rep are out for themselves. Defiance is an independent city-state that has its own system of government. And it works…" Tommy frowned and shrugged, "most of the time. If the Tarrs aren't sabotaging the ballot box. We keep to ourselves here. We ask for no trouble and give none. Except for trading we keep a strict 'leave us alone' policy."

"How ironic. I keep the same policy."

Nolan shook his head with finality. "Not here you don't."

"Spy or no spy she is still my patient." Doc Yewll's medical chart closed with a snap. She rose to take a protective, yet professional stance in front of the occupied bed. "She needs fluids and rest. Question time is over."

"How long until question time resumes?" Nolan jerked a thumb towards the door. "As you can see the streets haven't been too safe these days. I don't want to come back here and find my suspect liberated or worse… at the wrong end of a charge blade."

"According to diagnostics this woman hasn't a single recombinant or synthetic antigen seen in modern day vaccines. She hasn't used her muscles in over 30 years. She's ready when I say she's ready."

"Whatever you say, Doc. In the mean time I'll post Irisa here to watch over her."

The deputy bared her teeth. "Absolutely not."

Nolan shrugged. "She seems to like you." His enjoyment of the situation displayed a twitching mouth.

"How do you figure?"

"She answered your questions."

"This is wholly unnecessary!" Helena was rising from the bed and having a difficult time untangling her legs from the blanket. There was as much gelatin there as found in your average Jello from the modern age. Yewll pushed her back without a glance. Helena gave in with a disgruntled frown.

His work there done for the time being, Nolan swaggered towards the exit. When his hand grasped the door handle he stopped and turned. "Welcome to Defiance."

Stahma peeled back her snow white hood just enough to catch the Lawkeeper and his underling exit the medical center. Minutes after the Charger kicked up gravel she kept hidden so there was every guarantee her meeting went undisturbed.

"No more visitors today." Doc Yewll continued to scribble dosage notes on her new patient's chart. "And that includes the mayor's wife."

Her presence was already noticed as her silent gait was customary among female Castithans. Her affiliation with the most powerful man in Defiance was a dead giveaway. Datak had more of a handle on the goings on around town and who better to overhear them than his wife?

Easing the door to a close, Stahma slid her way up to the testy Indogene.

"It would just be for a few moments," she said and without a trace of impatience. "If I could only introduce myself to the new citizen and make her feel welcome I'm sure it would ease your mind as it does my husband's."

Yewll's hand went to her slim, smock covered hip. "I myself like to keep politics out of the hospital," she said rather blasé. "It messes with a little thing called ethics and doctor/patient confidentiality."

"I understand completely. All species adhere to their own code of principles, especially one race of so dedicated a vocation as yours. As her physician you have every right to hold your patient's well-being above the frivolous affairs of legislation."

"A simple 'I have no agenda' would do." The doctor's pitch gave off a low melody of bother.

Stahma received strict instructions not to alarm the patient with too much talk. The awakened human copped to knowing more about cryogenics and Earth's history than her visitors combined; the warning didn't matter much.

The next obstacle would border on a challenge, but not one Stahma couldn't surpass with a bat of the eyes and a murmur of 'truthful' statements. It would be like persuading the offspring of a blunt instrument ('like' in this case meant extreme equal to).

The soles of her boots planted in the floor like roots. "You don't belong here," Irisa said.

"I'm sure we can come to an understanding."

"I'm not Doc Yewll."

"But you must know what is good for the human woman. If what I hear is true then these matters should settle quietly and with a gentleness your kind has not yet mastered." Stahma's face remained cordial despite the Irathient's rigid posture. "These rough surroundings disorient her. A friend is what she needs."

"You think one look at your Casti face will ease her confusion? You're not as clever as I thought."

Stahma breathed in and then out through a kind smile. The whites of her eyelashes fluttered. "You have every reason to distrust me. I'm sure you would be anything but hard-pressed in escorting me out, and in normal circumstances I would comply. Yet," Stahma drew a step nearer, turning her mouth down so it could better deliver its purpose. "I am not here on behalf of my husband."

Irisa's stillness endured. She waited and she listened.

"Sources say that this stranger possesses a likeness to me." A partition blocked the subject from view, so Stahma took in the med center's surroundings like a dream. "I would be remiss to say this does not interest me. It is an exhilarating mystery." The trance-like gaze fell on Irisa, making the Irathient feel quite the focus of so engrossed a woman. How Stahma Tarr made someone feel like the only significant wildflower in the midst of an endless sea of them bewildered Irisa. "As I said, my being here has nothing to do with Datak. I merely wish to sate an innocent curiosity. There are many things in this solar system that we cannot place a name or value to and even more that are unimaginable. Faith is as shrouded as my distant and expired homeland." Stahma bowed her head. "I'm sure you can understand," she said with soft, translucent eyes.

Irisa lips didn't move from their stapled place. A moment later she responded with a bluntness that rivaled Doc Yewll, "You have fifteen minutes. Just talking. I'll be sitting right over there."

The young Irathient took five long strides to the other side of the med center and plopped herself in a chair. It was a fair distance away to give them privacy, but close enough to exert a watchful eye. The Irathient propped her crossed legs on a chair and folded her arms. She stared at Stahma's movements like she could hear the ends of her immaculate robe brush the floor.

Stahma resigned to a chair beside the bed. She held her chin level with the floor, hands in her lap, back straight and almost touching the chair's steel rail back. Movements were minimal as if she was posing for a portrait and the painter was staring her down for the initial brush strokes. She was holding still as all female Castithans did. They stood and sat as if on permanent display. Stahma would not move or speak until inspired to.

In the midst of posturing it occurred to Stahma that someone had finally spoken.

"This is not what I imagined for mankind."

The human's timbre was strange. Of another world, Stahma would grant, however foolish that might seem to the Earth species.

Stahma blinked after the break in silence and discovered her own voice, airy and generous. "And what did you imagine?"

Helena caught herself before replying. She narrowed her eyes with peculiarity. "Have you read many books?"

"I am familiar with the literature of my people, but I confess to no inkling over the written English word."

"Well," Helena sighed, angling her eyes away, "that upsets any chance of me boasting about my abilities." She looked back and noticed Stahma's brow out of place. "What I imaged and what I hoped for are two separate entities. I thought there would be war and desolation. Entropy leading to dystopia, which is, by definition, inevitable. Degeneration breeds chaos in all its forms.

"What I hoped for could only be described as an eventual peace. An idealistic ceasefire between all races and religions. Absolute truth, reason, and justice. From the course of history I have bared witness to the world seems to have struck a balance between the two. There is co-habitation. It is not perfect, but it exists in this town."

The last thing Stahma expected to act upon was her own curiosity. With no hint of an introduction Stahma found herself replying back to a stranger in the mirror.

"You speak as if you are an all-seeing presence." The need to express a notion of 'goddess' withheld for it was sacrilege to even speak of a higher power other than Rayetso. Stahma's hands clenched tighter in her lap. "Where is your home?" she rephrased.

"My home is in the heavens. I was a fixture there for many years."

"And before?"

A hand concealed itself within dark tresses. Helena bolted her eyes shut and shook her head. "I was encased 33 years ago on Earth, never to speak to a soul. I could not look upon another human being nor make any physical contribution. It was a rarity that I was ever looked upon. Once in a great while a new recruit would gape at my bronzed companions. Then their eyes would fall on my state."

Helena look faded past Stahma into oblivion. Her voice became as slow and artificial as a program.

"Sadness is something I did not wish to see for I was already filled to the brim with the stuff. Never in the decades I spent put away from all mobile society had it diminished." Her gaze returned alert. "Since the Votan's arrival my employer moved from place to place, myself along with them. It was becoming difficult to hide our purpose in the world. It was a frightful time which made our priority of secrecy all the more worth protecting. It wasn't until the Earth Military Coalition built secret government establishments in orbit did our warehouse find a safe haven. The battle was on the surface, of course, diverting all attention from interstellar travel. There was much going on up there than people understood. Infiltration of the Arks was a top priority. If the humans got their hands on Votan technology the fortunes of war would be theirs.

"Many of my people, from my warehouse, were called upon to act as spies. Many failed. None of it mattered, though. By 2030 some lucky fool from the EMC managed to cause a mass explosion that ripped apart the alien fleet along with my home. The thirty-second incarnation. The remains of that blast formed what is known today as the Ark Belt, and I with my capsule were left to knock amongst the debris for the next few years."

"Scavengers discovered your transport just outside Bissel Pass."

"Not far off from this little slice of utopia," Helena said with a nod. "That is how I know of Defiance's activities. Its accomplishments, its obstacles… the floods and epidemics…"

Stahma's back had settled into the chair as she took in the story. It sounded like a story, a fairy tale, a legend bordering on the implausible. It was nonsense. No human in stasis could possible know that much about Earth's history. Stahma had once read poetry with more riveting characters and interwoven plot.

Yet the spun tale shown on her face and in her eyes like no literature Stahma had experienced. From her restless hand tangling in hair black as a raven's wing to the eye roll covering a tear. The display was so entrancing, so believable. It threatened everything Stahma forced to believe. It was such a human spectacle. But why, Stahma asked herself, why should she feel such things if the story was false?

There was no other reason for it besides a trick. The story was as much a lie as the tremors. It was a fool's errand. Infiltration of her husband's office would not be dealt with kind words or a painless finale.

"We own a likeness of each other," Stahma said. "It is thrilling as I'm sure you will admit to the same. I have made a long journey as well. I am happy to share a familiarity of this nature."

"You are most certainly not."

Stahma stiffened, falsifying the smile further. "I beg your pardon?"

"Smiles and admissions of happiness are for those that actually possess it. I am about as much a fool as I am a spy for the Earth Republic. You are lying to me, darling. And you are lying to yourself."

"I do not understand."

"We are not the same." Helena put it out there with all the egotism that had kept her alive and kicking since 1866. "We may both feel alienated by this environment, but we do not hail from the same world. And our physical likeness is a product of coincidence and evolution. I myself have dabbled in the study of doppelgänger theory, coming up with no conclusion but sheer irrelevance. There is no grand meaning. No divine intervention." Her hand gave a wave at the wrist like she was swatting a fly. "Nature always did have a sense of humor."

"This is humorous to you?"

"If it wasn't, would I be talking to you?"

"I do not like being made a fool."

"Well, neither do I."

Stahma drew back. She locked her lips shut, going no further. This woman was smart – no, brilliant. Stahma had not met a more brilliant human being and, she was sure, a more brilliant living sentient.

"You know this better than I do."

"The game?" Helena asked. "Of course, darling. If the years I've been around have taught me anything…"

"I suppose it is… funny."

"A cosmic joke, more like. But I'm the only one laughing."

Stahma stared and tipped her head. "And yet you are not laughing."

"Now I am truly dating myself." Helena's mutter hit her shoulder before she twisted back like the movement struck a pang. "It is an expression. But 'funny' is far from an enjoyable feeling, especially since I am suffering muscle atrophy."

The smiles, the laughing, the pleasant tones. Perhaps they did share a commonality. Maybe Stahma was wrong about the motivation and the context. Maybe the trick was for the benefit of the trickster. To ease the past, the pain, the guilty conscious. Self-sabotage at its finest. The Castithan woman knew it well.

"I do not trust you," Stahma said.

"I hardly trust you, either."

On the final nod, the Casti looked over to the sound of a knife being scraped against a whetstone. She drifted back to the stranger.

"My name is Stahma."

"You can call me Helena."