10 Most Messed Up Deaths In Star Trek: Discovery
6. You Can Take The 'Air' Out Of 'Airiam'…
Airiam had already had a pretty rough time in life before her assignment aboard the Discovery. She lost her husband in a shuttle accident on the way back from eloping, the crash also the reason she needed her rather onerous cybernetic parts. In the background for a number of episodes, Airiam was finally foregrounded in Project Daedalus only to meet her end.
The Lieutenant Commander's fate was sealed by a moderately convoluted chain of events (even for Star Trek). The same AI — from the 28th century — that had infected Section 31's threat assessment system 'Control' also managed to infiltrate Airiam's cybernetic systems. Control then forced Airiam to download and transfer Discovery's 'Sphere data' on artificial intelligence, which it needed to become fully sentient, and then death to the galaxy!
Unable to stop herself, Airiam had no choice but to ask Burnham (plead with, even) to jettison her out of the airlock at Section 31 HQ. In the end, it was Commander Nhan who made the impossible choice and pulled the lever. As her last breath escaped her body, Airiam went back to the memory of the beach with her husband...
… but you can't keep a great kadis-kot player down. Though she would have no memory of events, Airiam did appear once more, with time travel, in Discovery's fifth season episode Face the Strange.