Disclaimer: I own neither Star Trek nor Star Wars
A/N: Once more, I am delivering you all another crack-treated-seriously concept that grew legs and a plot. I've been sitting on this concept for a Trek Wars crossover since late 2016, and I am happy to finally have had the writing gears start turning for it.
A few short orders of business before we get started: this chapter discusses the medical consequences of transporter malfunctions, as well as impaling. I personally think it's a very surface level discussion, but I have a notoriously skewed threshold for things like medical horror and gore, so… fair warning, I guess. I'd also like to thank my friend Ella – who's put up with me rambling about this concept for five years now – and my friend Lacie – for helping me suss out the details of exactly where I was going with this, as well as for giving me a name for an M-Class planet. This fic is dedicated to the two of you.
Contrary to what Dr. McCoy might say, transporters weren't actually all that dangerous. Sulu knew the statistics; the odds of death by transporter were about even with those for death by shuttlecraft accident - which while nonzero, certainly weren't worth putting your day on hold for. The overwhelming majority of transports were perfectly safe. They got you from where you were to where you wanted to be - nothing more, nothing less.
This was not one of those times.
Where he was was down on Epsilon Brandi III - a nice, M-Class world with wonderfully colorful local flora - and Sulu had thoroughly enjoyed being part of the landing party. He'd gotten some nice samples for the ship's botany labs, found a cool rock, and had altogether been ready to beam back aboard for lunch. Where he wanted to be was back aboard the Enterprise, ideally on the way to getting said lunch.
This was neither of those places.
You see, to Dr. McCoy's credit, when things went wrong with a transporter, things tended to go wrong. If you weren't careful, you could end up materialized in something, or around something - the results of which ranged from excruciatingly painful to deadly. This, unfortunately, was something Hikaru Sulu was learning firsthand.
Wherever it was that he'd ended up, there was rubble everywhere - pinned across his chest, jabbing into him from below, and digging viciously into his arm where the flesh had materialized around a piece of rebar. For a moment there was only pain, and confusion, and the discomfort of screaming in air that was suddenly thick with dust.
"-alker!"
It took him a moment to register the voice.
"-kin, what's happening? Can you hear me?" Someone else was screaming too - no, shouting - but in concern instead of in pain. "Skywalker!"
Sulu coughed, the last of the gold transporter beam vanishing.
"...He—" he managed after a moment, steadfastly trying not to think about the pain in his arm nor how hard it was to speak. "Hello?"
"You're not Skywalker," said the voice, and Sulu felt more than heard the alarm coloring their tone.
"Hikaru. Hikaru Sulu, of the—" A bout of coughing tore through his chest, and the already dim light seemed to be fading. "—Of the starship Enterprise. Who...who are you?"
Sulu was out cold before the voice could reply.
Mace Windu was not having a good day. Not, mind you, that there were ever any truly good days in war, but there certainly were days that counted as worse.
This was one of those days.
He and Anakin had been trapped under the broken remains of the Endurance for bordering on five hours now, and while Skywalker had complete faith in his astromech copilot, Mace was considerably more doubtful. He had nothing against the spunky little droid, but there was also a reason why R2-D2 and Anakin Skywalker worked well together: they both had a proclivity towards recklessness and chaos. Given that R2-D2 had only been meant to call for help, but had instead taken off from the planet in a hail of blasterfire some time ago, Mace felt his concerns were understandable.
Then, Skywalker started glowing.
At first, only a few motes of gold light lit up the younger man's skin. Soon enough, however, the motes were swarming, the outline of Anakin's form barely visible through the haze, and the Force bubbled. Mace had called for Skywalker then, trying to ascertain what exactly was going on, but it had been too late. Skywalker's cacophonous presence in the Force vanished, the screaming started, and fractures in the Force had shot out from the glowing form under a second later. For a moment, all sensory input became irrelevant to Mace in the wake of the sheer intensity of the shatterpoint's formation.
Skywalker was gone - a smaller, black-haired man lay in his place. His eyes were open - and, fortunately, he was breathing - but he didn't seem aware of much of what was going on around him.
"...He—Hello?"
"You're not Skywalker."
It was not, perhaps, the most eloquent of things Mace could have said, but his head was still ringing from whatever had just happened. Skywalker, wherever exactly he was, would have to forgive him for the lack of dramatic pronouncement. The unknown man, for his part, finally seemed to process that he wasn't alone.
"Hikaru. Hikaru Sulu, of the—" The man broke off into coughs. "—Of the starship Enterprise. Who...who are you?"
The man was unconscious before Mace could reply.
The next time Sulu awoke, he was...somewhere else. There was a faint, rhythmic beeping (a heart monitor of some kind?), and when he finally managed to get his eyes opened, Sulu found that this new location had considerably less debris and considerably more light than where he was last. Was this some sort of sickbay..?
"Ah, you're awake," a voice called - not the same one from before, but a new unknown voice - and Sulu shifted his head to get a look at the speaker. An alien of a species Sulu didn't recognize sat nearby. His skin was orange and textured, with fleshy protrusions on either side of his face, and - though Sulu couldn't be sure without knowing more about the body language norms for the alien's species and cultural background - exuded a calm that could rival Spock's from behind a metal mask and goggles. "Lie still - you have been injured."
"Okay," he nodded, feeling a little hazy from what he hoped might be a sedative. "There… There was someone else there with me. Are they…?"
"I can't say I haven't been better, but I'm alright." That was the voice, the first unknown voice! Turning his head the other direction - perhaps a little too vigorously, given the brief flash of vertigo that came with the motion - Sulu found the voice belonged to, as far as he could tell, a human man with dark skin and a shaved head in the medical bed beside his own. "I am Jedi Master Mace Windu."
"Nice to meet you," Sulu said, absently wondering what exactly a Jedi was. He instinctively tried to sit up to shake hands, only to be thwarted by a lance of pain and the sudden realization that his right arm had been immobilized. His forearm was in medical restraints, and a...tank, maybe, of some sort had been erected around his bicep? Sulu shook himself. "Nice to meet you," he repeated. "Though I do wish the circumstances were better. Where… Where am I, exactly? What happened?"
"You are in my ship's medical bay," The unknown alien interjected, voice as calm and low as it was before, and with a twinge of embarrassment Sulu realized he hadn't asked for his name. "According to Master Windu, our rescue party arrived shortly after you lost consciousness. You both were brought aboard and treated for your injuries. As for what happened prior to that…we were hoping you could tell us."
A/N: That's all for now folks!
I'm not sure exactly when I'll be updating this next –
Sympathy and Hourglass are still my priority works – but I'm having a lot of fun with it and hope I can deliver more content soon. Star Wars-wise, this is set in the middle of Clone Wars s2 e21: R2 Come Home. Star Trek TOS-wise, this is set ambiguously in season 2. Not much more to say at the moment – I don't want to spoil anything – but this fic was almost titled Accidental Jedi Hikaru Sulu. Not gonna lie, that's definitely still how I think of it.
As always, come drop by my creative works tumblr (link in my bio for FF.N users) if you'd like, and see you all next time!
