In 2257 Discovery, under the temporary command of Captain Christopher Pike, found the crashed USS Hiawatha on a drifting asteroid and rescued its surviving crew.
Discovery was following one of the mysterious red bursts that had appeared across the galaxy when it found the Hiawatha, a medical frigate lost during the Klingon War. Inside the wreck, engineer Jett Reno had kept the injured crew alive for months.
Pike's away team, including Michael Burnham, worked to get everyone off the asteroid. One officer was killed during the mission, but Reno and the survivors were beamed out, and Reno later joined Discovery's crew.