Lieutenant Iskander al-Kwaritzmi’s log, supplemental: we are arriving in the Norborhann system and are going to enter the orbit of the moon Norborhann-3A in a couple of hours. The Romulan Republic recovery fleet is under the control of a Commander Dardana, who ha so far now assigned support roles to our teams — retrieving lost technology more than helping with the D’Deridex. This will put us in direct contact with the native population, as we will have to travel to their settlements to retrieve anything that was lost, and possibly will have to convince them to give it back to us.

The purple sofa they kept in the living area was probably the only luxury that Iskander and Dhae could afford on the spartan Sternbach. It was in itself also not very large, but Iskander liked that as he was a cuddling person. In a state of quite radical undress, he was lying down next to Dhae, himself scarcely more clothed, his warm body providing heat and support and a sense of security. They had both been reading for close to one hour, without exchanging words, but now Iskander could feel that Dhae had put down his PADD and had turned his head as if to look out of the window at the speeding stars.

It wasn’t long before Dhae, probably bored, addressed him. “What are you reading?”

“A comprehensive review of the infractions of the Prime Directive.”

“Oh! Anything fun?”

“Infractions of the Prime Directive aren’t fun.”

Dhae chuckled. His voice was deep, dark, creamy. “That’s the Iskander I love, morose and broody. Well, I also love the other Iskander.”

Iskander didn’t respond to that. He felt that Dhae was chiding him a bit.

It wasn’t, truth to be told, a completely comprehensive list. The entire Starfleet Prime Directive Violation Record contained mostly a list of small objects that accidentally fell into an atmosphere. For instance, in stardate 192634.13 a small observation satellite put in orbit around Tugusna IX had been destroyed by a comet and its remains had fallen to the planet: most of them had been ignited by the air resistance, giving rise to a local small meteor shower, but a couple bigger pieces had made their way into the native bronze age civilization, including a red scarnerite crystal that had come to adorn the diadem of an old and influential prostitute before being retrieved.

Those infractions were usually marked as “non-critical”, because unless something really dangerous fell (such as the unexploded torpedo on Villankor-1), the cultural contamination was short-lived, very localized, and removed before they could have ramifications other than “look at the shiny rock”. Often the technological bit could just be beamed up when no-one was looking. For the greater part, they didn’t interest Iskander: a D’Deridex was in no way a “small object” that could go unnoticed or become decore for a whorehouse.

The list of infractions involving people or working macroscopic technology was still thousands of entries long. It contained a whos-who of past influential explorers: the first entry made for Christopher Pike, then Kirk, Androstani, Tulak, Harrison, Shanak, Alabezo-Hong, Picard, Kurk, ar-Bim, Holmbatoya (for a combined seventy-nine, apparently a record), Janeway (excluding a record-breaking number of still classified Temporal Prime Directive violations), Zimbaesi, Freeman and KashTaQ. Most of the infractions were traced ultimately to decisions made by the senior staff of a ship; however anyone was prone to committing them, from lowly Cadets to mighty Admirals.

“I’m also worried about losing my Starfleet career” said Dhae out of the blue. “It is so young and yet already in danger.”

This shook Iskander out of his reverie. “What?”

Dhae repeated.

“I’m not worried” said Iskander.

“Why aren’t you, my dear alien? You clearly love this job, although it doesn’t seem to be out of love for the State.”

Iskander shifted a bit his head, rearranging it so that it fell in Dhae’s warm and comfy chest. “I love this job because nowhere one does theoretical engineering and R&D quite like Starfleet” he said. “And I do not hate the idea of loving the Federation. I just — do not worship like Romulans do.”

“And for that I am sorry for you” said Dhae. “At any rate, I’d have losing my Starfleet career.”

“We have done nothing wrong yet” answered Iskander.

“Haven’t we? You have been looking at that long list of Prime Directive infractions for a very long time, scrolling it as if it was a portent of doom. Did you count how many of those infractions resulted in demotion and how many led to expulsion? Have you a handy statistics to give me? Sing me, oh statistician, our probability of demotion.”

About one in four and about one in five, knew Iskander. He hadn’t counted — the computer could do the counting for him — but he had checked. “I didn’t count.”

“Well, I am also worried” admitted Dhae, as if he hadn’t already said so more than once. “Did you learn anything important? Anything we should try to do, or avoid doing, in order to minimize the risk to our career?”

“I wasn’t checking for that!” mumbled Iskander, who had been checking for that. Cursed Romulan, he thought. “Listen, we didn’t break the Prime Directive. The Romulan Republic did.”

“A powerless warbird was caught in a gravity well. It was technically the laws of physics that broke the Prime Directive. And without having a Prime Directive that applies to the Romulan Republic to be broken.”

“We are therefore only aiding an ally to solve a humanitarian crisis in a context where the basic assumptions of the Prime Directive — that a civilization can experience a natural development — has already been broken. We are trying to minimize the, ehr, unnatural development of their culture and technology.”

“That’s a lovely speech and I hope that the chappesses and chaps who interpret the law will agree with you” agreed Dhae. Iskander had been wondering where the Romulan had heard the word “chappess”, and had been strongly hoping for him to stop using it soon. “But now consider this: if now, on that planet, one of their doctors has put their hands on a Romulan medical scanner and has discovered how to cure a common plague they suffer from — what would be the natural development of their civilization? For them to use a cure that they have already discovered by cleverly learning how to use a Romulan device, or for a Federation team to jump on them and steal the cure because using the Romulan device was unnatural?”

Iskander felt very defensive. “I don’t know!”

“Would it be natural for them to use knowledge they have acquired?” mused Dhae.

“Doesn’t the source of that knowledge matter?”

Dhae chuckled, his voice deep and dreamy. “The source of the knowledge is their ingenuity. The tool might have been important to open their horizon, but knowledge is created by interpreting the tool, not by having it.”

“So what, my Romulan? We should leave them with the knowledge and take away the tool?”

Dhae sounded amused. “So this is the result of your study of the ethical entrails of the Prime Directive? That we should be like thieves?”

Iskander sighed. “It is not my decision to make.”

He could feel Dhae shaking his head. “It will be. You will be on that planet, probably leading a small team, and you will come across a situation whose specifics have not been discussed, and you will maybe not even have time to consult our superiors. You might have to decide now. What will it be? Will you decide something that will be dissected in a couple of months by a court? Will you be found wanting?”

“Well I don’t know. Will you be found wanting, Dhae?”

“I already said I also worry for my career, dear. A Romulan always fears to be found wanting. It’s our natural, healthy paranoia.”

Iskander scoffed. He threw the PADD on the floor and turned to look Dhae in the eyes. “Right! This discussion has overstayed its welcome.”

Dhae looked back at him and smiled knowingly. “I knew I’d manage to wear you down.”

“What, did you try to annoy me so that I’d stop thinking about the Prime Directive?”

“Try?” repeated the Romulan, playing innocent.

“You’d better have something that can distract me.”

“I do have an idea” said the Romulan, and kissed him.