The hard, metallic floor of the Med-Lab clunked beneath Connelly's feet as she paced, occasionally glancing at Peterson. The man she had come to know as a confident, strong willed and sometimes macho personality now had his forearm strapped to a short operating table, and he was whimpering like a school boy with a skinned knee.

"Ahh! Hurts like hell," Peterson complained, as Choi pinched the festering puncture wound on the back of his hand. A red tinged foam oozed from the gash. Choi added pressure and Peterson began sucking air in between his clenched teeth. Connelly felt sure he would soon let out a scream. But Choi eased up as soon as the liquid draining from his hand began running clear.

Connelly noticed that Choi had all but ignored Peterson's complaint of pain. She also noticed how Harris, who stood behind Choi, his arms crossed tight across his chest, had remained expressionless throughout the ordeal. He was impossible to read, but one thing was for sure, his normally friendly demeanor was gone. Connelly was sure the captain's confidence in her was shattered; that she and Peterson might very well be excluded from the remainder of the mission and banned from the Europhid samples. If she were in change, that's the decision she would make.

Why did I listen to him? she thought.

A typhoon of rage swirled though Connelly's mind. All affection for Peterson dissipated, replaced by anger. But not just at Peterson, at herself as well. While he had smuggled the Europhid from the lab, she had followed him. He had activated the plant incubator, but she had watched—seduced by curiosity. And now she might lose her position and life's work. All her dreams, all her passion, might have been destroyed by the stupidity of one attractive man and her own foolishness.

"Watch it!" Peterson said in a loud voice that bordered on yelling.

Choi stood above Peterson's hand, clasping a sharp pair of tweezers between her gloved fingers. "Keep your hand still, Dr. Peterson. I wouldn't want to make the wound worse." Choi's voice was controlled and even, but there was no doubting that she would follow up on her veiled threat. Peterson bit his lip and made his body rigid, holding as still as possible.

Peterson's face twisted with pain as Choi slid the needle-tipped tweezers inside his hand. She tried three times, unsuccessfully, to grasp something buried between his metacarpals. Peterson's flesh turned white and his body went slack. On the forth attempt, Choi grasped something with the tweezers and quickly yanked it out.

Reacting to the immense pain, Peterson yanked his hand back and pulled the small table up into the air. He was about to protest when he saw the centimeter-long sliver, that looked more like a piranha's tooth, held firmly in the tweezers grasp. "God…what is it?"