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Lex begins her shift by removing a spoon from a Guardsman’s thigh.
This is not the worst injury she has treated.
It isn’t even the worst injury she has treated involving cutlery.
She stares down at the metal handle protruding from CT-7721’s upper leg while the trooper sits on the examination cot with his trousers cut open around the wound. His name is Kettle, which Lex suspects is relevant to the situation, although she's afraid to ask.
Commander Stone stands beside him with his arms folded.
Kettle looks at Lex.
Lex looks at the spoon.
Commander Stone looks tired enough to become a geological feature.
“How?” Lex finally asks.
Kettle clears his throat. “Prison cafeteria.”
“That tells me where.”
“There was an altercation.”
Stone closes his eyes. “He tried to catch it.”
Lex looks up. “Catch the spoon?”
“With his leg,” Stone says.
“It was moving really fast,” Kettle explains.
Most people would assume medical training prepares someone for battlefield injuries, infectious diseases, traumatic amputations, and the occasional exotic parasite.
Nobody warns medics about Guardsmen.
Lex takes hold of the spoon with a pair of forceps. “This is going to hurt.”
“I’m a highly trained soldier.”
“You screamed when I cleaned your elbow last month.”
“That antiseptic was cold.”
Lex gives him a sympathetic smile. She can’t help it. Kettle is an idiot, but he is an injured idiot, and that activates something deep in her brain that overrides common sense.
Stone notices.
“Don’t encourage him.”
“I’m not encouraging him.”
“You’re making the face.”
Lex’s smile disappears. “What face?”
“The one that tells my troopers they can survive being stupid because you’ll fix them.”
Kettle points at Stone. “Exactly.”
Lex pulls the spoon free.
Kettle screams loudly enough to startle a medical droid three beds away.
Stone doesn’t move.
Lex presses a bacta pad over the wound while Kettle breathes through his teeth.
Clone healing is absurdly efficient. Fett genetics already provide a strong foundation, and Kaminoan gene editing pushed it further. Kettle’s wound will close in a few days. He’ll be limping for less than one.
This is useful in a war.
It is also the reason Guardsmen keep doing things that would force natborns to reconsider their life choices.
Lex tapes the bacta patch into place. “No running for twelve hours.”
Kettle looks offended. “I’m on riot rotation.”
“You got stabbed with a spoon.”
“Technically, I was spooned.”
Stone grabs the back of Kettle’s undershirt and hauls him off the bed.
“You’re going to the barracks before I finish what the spoon started.”
Lex watches them leave.
Kettle limps dramatically until Stone threatens to carry him.
The second they disappear through the medbay doors, Lex opens a hidden folder on her datapad.
She adds the security image of the spoon, the injury report, and Kettle’s statement beneath a file labeled BLACKMAIL, NON-FATAL, SELF-INFLICTED BY STUPIDITY.
The folder has subcategories.
Lex is not proud of this.
She is, however, extremely organized.
As second-in-command of the Medical Corps, Lex has access to nearly every Guard medical report. She also has reports from other GAR battalions whenever cases are transferred through Coruscant, which means her collection has grown into something that could destroy careers, friendships, and at least four marriages nobody is legally supposed to know exist.
She doesn’t use the archive maliciously.
Mostly.
Last week, Commander Thorn tried to avoid his mandatory vaccine by claiming he’d already received it.
Lex had shown him footage from the previous year of Thorn climbing onto a cabinet because he thought Scalper was coming toward him with a needle.
He received the vaccine.
Lex considers that medicine.
The medbay doors open again.
A patrol trooper enters carrying another trooper over one shoulder.
The carried trooper is conscious.
He is also upside down.
Lex rises. “Put him down carefully.”
The patrol trooper lowers his brother onto the next cot.
The injured clone’s name is Rook. His left arm is bent at an angle arms should not achieve without extensive planning.
Lex’s stomach tightens.
“What happened?”
Rook looks toward his brother.
His brother looks toward the ceiling.
Lex waits.
Rook sighs. “We were testing whether Senate curtains could hold body weight.”
Lex looks at the broken arm.
Then she looks at the pair of them.
“Why?”
“They’re expensive.”
“That still doesn’t explain why.”
“We wanted to know if the price was justified.”
Lex begins scanning the fracture.
“Was it?”
“No,” Rook admits.
His brother shrugs. “The curtain held.”
“The rod didn’t.”
Lex saves that information for later.
She resets the arm, applies a bone-knitting stimulator, and warns Rook not to use it for at least a day. He promises.
He is lying.
Lex writes the restriction in capital letters and sends a copy directly to Commander Thorn.
That usually adds six hours to its lifespan.
The shift continues.
Hour seven brings a Guardswoman with a dislocated jaw after she attempted to bite through a cable tie.
Hour twelve brings a Senate escort with a concussion caused by Representative Binks opening a door into his face.
Hour nineteen brings a prison medic requesting assistance with a brother who has somehow glued both hands to a refresher wall.
Lex doesn’t ask how that happened.
She has grown as a person.
At hour twenty-four, she treats something serious.
A sister from Commander Stone’s riot division arrives with blood running beneath her chest plate. Her name is Tally. She’s conscious, but only barely, and one of her squadmates is pressing both hands against a wound in her side.
The medbay changes instantly.
The humor drops away.
Lex directs the troopers toward the trauma bed, cuts through Tally’s armor seals, and finds a deep puncture beneath the ribs. Someone in the riot had modified a metal signpost into a spear.
Tally’s breathing is wet.
Lex’s hands shake once.
Then they stop.
Softhearted doesn’t mean useless.
Meek doesn’t mean incapable.
The Kaminoans had decided Lex wasn’t suited to frontline work because she cried after losing patients. They preferred medics who could step over bodies without reacting.
Scalper had taken one look at Lex’s evaluations and requested her for the Guard.
“You care,” Scalper had rasped. “Good. Means you’ll try harder.”
Lex stabilizes Tally’s breathing, seals the damaged vessel, and inserts a drainage line while the other medics prepare bacta. Tally’s squadmates hover near the bed, armor streaked with dirt, blood, and the chemical residue left by riot dispersants.
“Is she going to live?” one asks.
Lex doesn’t give false answers.
“I think so.”
The trooper’s knees nearly give out.
Lex catches his wrist before he can fall.
“She’s healing already,” Lex says. “The puncture missed the heart. We’ve stopped the bleeding.”
The squadmate nods too quickly.
Lex knows what he needs, so she keeps talking.
“She’ll be angry when she wakes up.”
“She’s usually angry.”
“Then she’ll be normal.”
That gets the smallest laugh.
Sometimes medicine is surgery.
Sometimes it is giving someone permission to breathe.
Tally is stable by hour twenty-eight.
Lex leaves her under observation and goes to restock the trauma cart.
The cabinet is full.
Lex pauses.
It shouldn’t be.
Yesterday, they were down to six emergency coagulant packs, three bone stimulators, and one bacta canister Scalper had threatened to chain to the floor.
Now the cabinet contains two sealed crates of coagulants, enough stimulators for a battalion, and several military-grade bacta packs that officially don’t exist outside Kaminoan facilities.
Lex looks toward Scalper’s office.
The door is closed.
There are rules in the Guard medwing.
Don’t drink anything Ghost offers.
Don’t ask why Ink owns surgical tools that aren’t in the inventory.
Never allow Commander Thorn to claim he isn’t afraid of needles.
Most importantly, don’t ask where Scalper gets supplies.
Lex made that mistake once.
She’d found a crate of rare medication sitting outside the pharmacy and asked who authorized the delivery.
Scalper had stared at her for a full ten seconds, then written on her datapad:
DO YOU WANT THE MEDICINE OR THE ANSWER?
Lex had selected the medicine.
She still believes she made the correct choice.
At hour thirty-three, Scalper emerges from her office carrying a fresh crate beneath one arm.
Lex watches her place it beside the pharmacy.
“Chief?”
Scalper looks over.
Lex points toward the crate. “Did those come from Logistics?”
Scalper’s eyes narrow.
Lex remembers the rule.
“Never mind.”
Scalper gives one approving nod and walks away.
The box has no shipping label.
There is dirt on one corner that looks suspiciously like red Mandalorian soil.
Lex does not see it.
At hour forty-one, Major Hound brings in Grizzer.
The massiff has a plastic training cone stuck over her head.
Hound removes his helmet. “Before you say anything, she did this herself.”
Grizzer charges into a cabinet.
The cone makes a loud scraping noise.
Lex bites the inside of her cheek. “Is she injured?”
“No.”
Grizzer backs up, turns, and walks into the same cabinet again.
“Is she sedated?”
“No.”
“Why did you bring her to medical?”
Hound gestures toward the cone. “It’s stuck.”
Lex kneels in front of Grizzer. The massiff sniffs at her through the narrow end, then sneezes directly into Lex’s face.
Hound looks away.
Lex wipes slime from her cheek.
“I saw that.”
“Saw what?”
She adds his name to a mental list.
Removing the cone takes three medics, one ration bar, and a threat from Scalper to amputate it.
When Grizzer is free, she licks Lex’s entire forehead.
Hound calls that gratitude.
Lex calls it a biohazard.
At hour fifty, Commander Thire arrives with a Guardsman who refuses to explain why there is glitter in his eye socket.
At hour fifty-six, a sister from Senate patrol requests treatment for severe abdominal pain.
It turns out she ate eight ration bars in under four minutes because Commander Thorn told her nobody could do it.
Lex treats the cramps.
She also forwards the report to Marshal Commander Fox.
Thorn appears in medbay nine minutes later.
“Was that necessary?”
Lex looks up from her datapad. “You encouraged a trooper to eat eight ration bars.”
“I said she couldn’t.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“I was factually correct.”
“She did it.”
“She regretted it.”
“You’re doing her next two shifts.”
Thorn stares at her.
Lex’s voice is quiet. It always is. Raised voices make her uncomfortable, and arguing with command officers makes her feel like she is about to shed her skeleton and flee through a ventilation shaft.
She doesn’t look away.
Thorn sighs.
“Yes, Medic.”
Lex blinks.
She hadn’t expected that to work.
Thorn leans closer. “You’re spending too much time with Scalper.”
Lex feels an inappropriate amount of pride.
At hour sixty-two, the stimulant caf stops tasting like anything.
At hour sixty-five, Lex catches herself staring at a wall for four minutes.
At hour sixty-eight, she treats a senator’s aide for a minor cut while three Guardsmen wait with injuries ranging from burns to a fractured cheekbone.
The aide complains about the wait.
Lex apologizes.
She hates that she apologizes.
She hates that it happens automatically.
The aide continues complaining while Lex seals the cut, which doesn’t need medical treatment and could have been handled with a standard patch.
Behind him, a trooper named Dove sways on his feet.
His armor is scorched. One eyebrow is missing.
Lex finishes with the aide as quickly as she can.
“You may return to duty.”
“It still hurts.”
“The skin is sealed.”
“I should receive painkillers.”
Lex looks at the nearly invisible line across his finger.
Then she looks at Dove.
Something in her finally goes very still.
“No.”
The aide blinks. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t require pain medication.”
“I’m a senior senatorial aide.”
“Your occupation doesn’t change the wound.”
His expression turns ugly. “I’ll report this.”
Lex’s throat tightens.
She wants to retreat. She wants Scalper to walk into the room and turn the aide into a stain through eye contact alone.
Scalper isn’t here.
Dove is still swaying.
Lex folds her hands to hide their trembling.
“You may file a complaint,” she says. “The Chief Medical Officer reviews all medical conduct reports.”
The aide glances toward Scalper’s office.
Everyone in the Senate knows enough about Scalper to fear her.
He leaves without another word.
Lex waits until the doors close.
Then she runs to Dove.
His burns are worse beneath the armor. She cuts away melted undersuit fabric, applies bacta, and stays beside him until his breathing evens out.
“Sorry,” he murmurs.
Lex frowns. “For what?”
“Making trouble.”
“You were injured.”
“Same thing here.”
Lex hates that answer.
She treats him anyway.
At hour seventy, Scalper appears beside her with crossed arms.
“Off.”
Lex looks around the medbay.
Three beds are occupied. Ghost is arguing with a monitor because it keeps beeping at her. Tally is awake and threatening to stab anyone who tells her to rest. Kettle has returned because he ignored the no-running order and tore the spoon wound open again.
“I can stay.”
“Eight hours,” Scalper rasps.
“We’re short-staffed.”
“We’re always short-staffed.”
“Tally needs monitoring.”
“Done.”
“Kettle needs supervision.”
Scalper looks at Kettle.
Kettle immediately lies down and pretends to be asleep.
“Handled,” Scalper says.
Lex hesitates.
Scalper’s expression softens by a degree.
It is the medical equivalent of an embrace.
“Go.”
Lex collects her datapad and drags herself toward the barracks.
Before leaving, she opens the blackmail archive one final time.
She uploads the spoon incident, the curtain experiment, Grizzer’s cone extraction, Thorn’s ration-bar challenge, and a still image of Hound pretending not to laugh while Lex wipes massiff mucus from her face.
She labels the day’s folder:
DECEMBER: WAR REMAINS SECOND MOST DANGEROUS PART OF GAR SERVICE.
Then Lex closes the file and begins her eight precious hours off duty.
She spends the first one walking to her bunk.
She spends the second removing her boots.
She sleeps through the remaining six and wakes when someone pounds on the door to announce that Commander Stone has somehow injured himself with a chair.
Lex lies still for several seconds.
Then she reaches for her datapad.
Blackmail doesn’t collect itself.