My Star Trek One-Shots

Sulu

The USS Discovery had been ordered to rendezvous with the Enterprise near the fringes of Federation space, responding to a distress signal. But before all hell broke loose, something . . . or rather someone, had already shaken Hikaru Sulu's world.

She had arrived during a temporal anomaly rescue—rescued, in fact, by Burnham and Saru from a collapsing wormhole tethered inexplicably to Earth's 21st century. She was wearing a flannel shirt tied around her waist, ripped jeans, and boots that clunked down the sterile corridors like she belonged in Seattle, circa 1995. The messy ponytail, chipped black nail polish, and oversized hoodie screamed "grunge," but her eyes were sharp, constantly scanning, analyzing. When she spoke, her words were peppered with slang like "vibe check," "ghosted," and "bet," and no universal translator could quite keep up.

Her name was Jordan Reyes, and she was a linguistic and mathematical savant with an attitude to match.

When the Discovery docked alongside the Enterprise, she wandered into the mess hall, grumbling about the lack of coffee that didn't taste like "Starbucks's great-great-grandchild got lazy." Sulu had just been passing through. One glance. That's all it took.

He was done for.

She didn't notice him at first, her nose buried in a data padd that she'd jury-rigged to run a comparative syntax model of ancient Klingon dialects against 21st-century emojis. But Sulu noticed everything about her—the cadence of her voice, the way she tilted her head when she was deep in thought, the way her presence felt like controlled chaos in an otherwise orderly universe.

He didn't know how to speak to her. Not because she was difficult—though she was—but because every time he opened his mouth, he was terrified he'd overwhelm her more. She was already struggling to adjust to a world where people transported via matter streams and where warp theory replaced Newtonian physics. So instead, he hovered—quietly watching, always there, always ready.

Then came Krall's attack.

The chaos unfolded with deadly precision. The ships were torn apart, the crews scattered. When Jordan's escape pod crash-landed on Altamid, it was Sulu who tore through hostile terrain, desperate to find her. When he did, her first words were: "Took you long enough, Captain Space Hero."

She had a cut on her temple, blood caking her flannel sleeve, but she was grinning through it all.

"You okay?" he asked, his voice raw with concern.

"Define okay," she said. "We're marooned, hunted by alien Mad Max, and I'm 400 years from my Spotify playlist."

But her hand found his. And he didn't let go.

Back in Federation space, after the battle was over, the dust of Krall's destruction settled, and the repairs to the Enterprise began, Sulu found her sitting under the stars in a quiet corner of Yorktown Station, sipping something the replicator tried to pass off as coffee.

He approached cautiously. "Jordan?"

She looked up, expression unreadable. "Let me guess: you're about to tell me something important."

"I—" He hesitated. "I care about you. A lot more than I probably should. And I don't know what's next for you, or even if you're staying, but I didn't want to wait anymore to tell you."

Jordan smirked, stood up slowly, and walked right up to him. "Took you forever, flyboy." Then she leaned in and kissed him—firm, certain, grounded in a way that made time stop again.

When they broke apart, her hand stayed on his chest. "Of course I knew. You think I don't notice the handsome Starfleet guy who keeps making sure I don't trip over my own temporal displacement?"