Doc Painless had seen a
lot of really, really messed up patients come through his clinic. He'd treated a speeder crash victim who'd lost the top of his skull when his vehicle had hit the underside of a bridge - that one hadn't made it, and he still saw the guy's face (or what'd been left of it) in his nightmares sometimes. He'd provided amputations and cybernetic replacements to
countless Denon factory workers, their hands or arms or legs smashed flat in some industrial processor or mangled by colossal skimmer blades. He'd been there during the massive earthquake that had rattled Seven Corners, trying desperately to save the battered people being hauled from the rubble.
In her present state, Shai could have given
any of them a run for their money on
messed up.
The Doc was frankly astounded that she'd survived to get to his clinic, given the extent of her injuries - and of what she'd faced while
getting those injuries. The woman who'd brought her in had given him the quick and dirty of what had happened. Apparently she'd faced down a
Sith Lord during the most recent Battle of Coruscant. In an old life, before he had worn this face and taken the name Doc Painless, the street medic had known a thing or two about the Sith. He had seen their power up close, closer than he'd ever wanted to. Little mortals like him didn't survive their wrath, pretty much ever. The fact that Shai had, in any condition, was astounding.
Now it was his responsibility to
keep her alive. Easier said than done, he thought, glancing at her grimly.
Doc Painless prided himself on taking care of anyone and everyone who came into his clinic needed care... but this one was personal. It was Shai who had rescued him when the whole life he'd built on Denon had come tumbling down, even at cost and risk to herself, for someone she barely knew. She had helped him get set up in his little refuge in Smogtown, and had talked him through those dark days after his first kill, when he'd been forced to let go of the man he'd tried to be and let something new grow. She was the reason he was competent with a blaster, and the reason he hadn't put one to his own head and pulled the trigger
months ago. He owed her. He owed her big.
Thankfully, the Doc wasn't in his little cargo container "clinic" down in Smogtown anymore. The resources and new location he'd gotten from Xan had allowed him to move up a few levels, and he'd quickly established a covert, street-level reputation as a reliable street medic. The gang that ran the block had tried to shake him down at first, but they had an agreement now; he paid his protection by patching up their guys, rather than in credits. In exchange for his above-and-beyond services, they tipped him off if any Corpos came sniffing around, giving him time to skip town for a few days. It'd worked out. He had a lot more space now, and far better equipment than before.
Maybe even better than what he'd had at his Baker's Row clinic, though he would always miss the place.
A great deal of that equipment, and many of his most advanced drugs and other supplies, were now at work keeping Shai alive. Her spine and her skull were the biggest concerns, in that order. If they were mangled beyond repair, nothing else would matter... and they were harder to fix than lacerations or lost limbs. Bacta could close saber wounds and sooth ravaged skin, but it couldn't un-twist a spinal column or re-grow fragments of bone. These wounds were things that had to be corrected with extreme caution... and a great deal of cybernetic replacement. Broken vertebrae, ravaged nerves, bits of skull, all had to be repaired and repositioned with metal.
The
initial surgery, conducted with droid assistance
within the bacta tank, took more than eight hours.
By the end, the Doc was exhausted. His precision guidance of the surgical assistant droids, wielding them remotely as if they were his own hands, was no less tiring than physically working on Shai with his own limbs... and even more stressful, for it was all too easy to make a mistake when the tactile feedback wasn't immediate. He didn't, though. The Doc had many flaws, and even more regrets, but he was a damn good surgeon. He unfurled Shai like an unrolling bolt of fabric, straightening what had been made crooked, strengthening what had been rendered broken. Three limbs were still gone, the last one mangled, and her eyes still blinded... but she would survive.
The Doc wanted nothing more than to collapse into sleep, but he couldn't do that just yet. He needed to know if all he'd done was worth it, if there was something still alive in his friend beyond just her organs. She'd suffered
massive trauma, trauma that had affected her brain and nervous system. If she was braindead or brain-damaged in there, if he had spent eight hours saving nothing more than the basic cardiovascular function of a vegetable... he had to know. The bacta cylinder slowly rotated, depositing Shai on her side; laying her on her back
or front wasn't particularly safe at the moment, as both were heavily plated and sutured. Then the bacta slowly drained.
He couldn't do anything more for her if she didn't wake.
"Shai," he whispered, close to the glass.
"Can you hear me?"
Doc Painless
