In Voyager's Briefing Room. Assan: "If I'm guilty of anything it's of coming in second, a situation I'll remedy in the next leg." O'Zaal: "You do a poor job of defending yourself." Torres: "We may have had something to do with this too. We grazed both of their shields while in the anomaly." Janeway: "Intentionally?" Paris: "It was a tight course. Everyone was flying very aggressively." Irina: "Your team is not responsible, Captain. My generators were already overloading when they made contact." Tuvok enters, carrying something which he hands to Janeway. "Perhaps none of you is to blame. I found this interfaced with her ship's shield generator. I ran an analysis. It's a phase inverter, designed to cause a system overload." Janeway: "It's hard to believe someone would go this far just to knock a competitor out of the race." O'Zaal: "This may be more than a simple case of cheating, Captain. I think someone's trying to end the peace." Janeway: "Maybe I'm missing something, but we're talking about a single act of sabotage. How does that threaten your treaty?" O'Zaal: "By itself it wouldn't. But we received several threats of a more serious nature." Tuvok: "From whom?" O'Zaal: "Groups opposed to the alliance: arms dealers, isolationists, political extremists. Up until now I didn't know how seriously to take them." Tuvok: "Clearly they pose a security threat." O'Zaal: "Yes, yes. We've done everything we could to protect the racers but that may not be enough. I don't want to risk any more lives. We should cancel the race or at least postpone it until we can guarantee everyone's safety." Irina: "No, if we stop now we'll be letting these extremists win." Assan: "She's right."

O'Zaal: "Very well. If that's the consensus, we'll resume tomorrow as scheduled. Of course, Captain, if you decide to withdraw, we'd understand." Janeway: "Well, the last time I checked I believe we were winning."

Kim surprises Paris, Torres and even Irina when he announces that he will be Irina's replacement co-pilot. He has checked it with the race officials and it is legal. Irina is not keen to accept Kim's offer, but eventually accepts. Now she is back in the race.

In the Shuttlebay, the teams make preparations to resume the race.

Aboard the Delta Flyer. Paris: "Come on, you can say it." Torres: "It's embarrassing." Paris: "I just want to make sure we're clear on what we're doing." Torres: "'Right at the light, then re-adjust my sight.'" Paris: "Meaning?" Torres: "Come about 86 degrees at the red giant then recalibrate sensors to compensate for photonic interference." Paris: "Great. Next?" Torres: "Do I really have to spend my morning reciting nursery rhymes?" Paris: "It got me through the Academy." Torres: "You were expelled." Paris: "Ok, repeat after me: I am not the pilot, I will not attempt to fly this ship." Torres: "That one doesn't even rhyme." Kim comes on board: "Anyone home?" Paris: "Well, if it isn't our competition." Torres: "Here to spy on us?" Kim: "Just stopped by to borrow a hyperspanner." Paris, handing him one: "Looks like you didn't get much sleep." Kim: "Irina and I were up all night." Paris: "Oh really." Kim: "Making repairs!" Paris: "Aha." Kim: "To be honest, I can't remember the time I last had so much fun. She's funny, smart, we get along without trying. I'm going to ask her if she wants to spend some time on Voyager after the race." Paris: "What about Joxum?" Kim: "Turns out they're just team-mates." Kim: "I know what you're going to say." Paris: "No, actually I was going to congratulate you. I mean, she's not a Borg, she's not a hologram, she's not dead. Looks like you might have found yourself the perfect woman." O'Zaal makes the announcement that the race will resume in 30 minutes.

The race resumes and Neelix has become the race commentator: "Attention all hands! Stand by for another race update! After fighting off a formidable challenge from the Tarellian team, the Delta Flyer has managed to hold onto its lead going into the third and final segment." Voyager's crew listens intently to the commentary.

	Kim detects malfunctions in the EPS systems. They will be out of the race in a few minutes at this rate. Kim suggests rerouting power through the impulse manifolds but she says no. He notes that whenever he suggests how to repair a fault Irina finds a reason to reject it. Irina's look shows that she is up to something. An alert sounds and Irina leaves her pilot's seat. Kim realises it is an overload in his console and gets out of the chair only just in time to avoid being seriously injured. Kim: "That's the second time your co-pilot's console exploded. Quite a coincidence."
	As he looks up, Kim suddenly sees...
	...Irina is pointing a gun at him.
	Kim: "You sabotaged your own ship, twice. Why are you trying so hard to get out of this race?" Suddenly he activates a control and the ship tilts. At the same time he leaps up, wrestles the gun away from her and points it at her. Kim: "What the hell is going on?! Sit down and hold still!"

Kim tries to contact Antarian Security but she has disabled the communications system. He says: "We'll just wait - someone'll come along eventually."

Aboard the Delta Flyer.
Torres: "We're past the last marker. Time to deploy the thrusters?"
Paris: "Whatever you say."
Torres: "What happened to 'I'm the pilot'?"
Paris: "That really bothered you, didn't it. It's why you don't think we fit together as well as Harry and Irina?"
Torres: "Could we talk about this later? Assan is gaining on us."
Paris: "Well, I guess you'd better deploy the thrusters."
Torres: "Thrusters deployed. This isn't about the race any more, is it?"
Paris: "You tell me."

Aboard Irina's ship. While Kim and Irina wait, they keep an eye on the progress of the race via a display monitor on the ship's console.

Aboard the Delta Flyer. Torres: "I thought that if we could do this one thing together, something that you cared about, it might help our relationship." Paris: "I didn't think it needed help." Torres: "Well, that's part of the problem." Paris: "What's the rest?!" Torres: "You know the rest." Paris: "So we 'scrape shields' occasionally. It keeps things interesting." Torres: "Maybe 'interesting' isn't enough for me." Paris brings the Delta Flyer to a stop. Torres: What are you doing?" Assan's ship flies past. "That was Assan! Why are we just sitting here?" Paris: "If we've got a problem we're going to resolve it, right here, right now."

Kim reports that the Delta Flyer is stopping less than a million kilometres from the finish line. At this Irina shows concern which sets Kim thinking: "You've done everything possible to take herself out of the race and now she seems worried that the Delta Flyer won't reach the finish line. .... The Delta Flyer wouldn't even be in this race if you hadn't told us about it. You gave us the fuel converter so that we could qualify."
Suddenly he pieces the puzzle together: there are more than a dozen ships there, spectators officials, hundreds of innocent people waiting at the finish line. Irina gave the Delta Flyer a sabotaged fuel converter. Her plan is that the massacre caused by the explosion will destroy the peace.
Irina explains: "Not everyone is as comfortable mixing with other species as you are, Harry. Some of us believe it was better when we were separate."