He stripped off the other turian's partially ruined armour with cool efficiency, detached the part of his underarmour that covered his upper body, then turned him on his stomach to examine the other turian's upper back.
He hissed in displeasure at the sight of the plates along Nihlus' spine, from mid-back to waist level. In a healthy turian they formed a smooth, overlapping, even line. In this one, they were partially ripped loose from the skin beneath and completely out of alignment. There was some blood from where the plates had lost their connection with the skin below, or where the edges of dislodged plates had turned inwards and cut into flesh. None of the plates were cracked through, though, which was a good sign. None were ripped loose too far to prevent their reattaching, which was even better.
Plates could grow back, but it took time, and there always was scarring.
Saren shook his head, annoyed, and ran another scan to see whether there was any significant damage in the skeletal structure below as well.
The scan came up clean on that, which was at least something, since right now they were a good day's worth of travel away from any decent medical facility that deserved the name.
The Spectre bit down on his annoyance. As much as he would have liked to lay the blame for this at his trainee's feet, it hadn't been Nihlus' fault that the hideout of a small group of thieves specialising in restricted bio-tech they had been hoping to catch had been deserted, except for the sole YMIR mech.
Neither of them had expected a high-class military mech in a place like this, and while they had taken it down, Nihlus had gotten caught and literally stomped on by it before Saren had managed to disable it completely. His armour had held off the worst damage, as it would seem, but he hadn't escaped unscathed.
Saren slapped another analgesic patch against his trainee's neck, then prodded the area around the misaligned scales experimentally. There was quite a lot of swelling already, which meant he had to realign them quickly before things got worse.
"It's not that I object to that sort of thing on principle, but shouldn't you at least buy me a drink beforehand?" Nihlus' voice was groggy, and rather faint, and Saren was, as often in his dealing with his trainee, caught between annoyance and relief. He'd have preferred the younger turian to stay unconscious for a bit longer, but he wasn't sure that another tranq patch wouldn't be too much for the other turian's already taxed system. He apparently was delirious enough as it was.
"Shut up and stay still." Saren replied.
"That mech..."
"I said shut up." Saren repeated, his tone getting sharper. "The YMIR's decommissioned. You're back on my ship. You suffered some damage to your back, and I'm trying to correct that, so it would be in your own best interest not to disturb me."
"Spirits." Nihlus sighed. "Do you have even an idea of what you're doing?"
Saren sighed, then took hold of two adjacent plates and tugged, hard. There was an audible crunching snap, and he felt Nihlus wince despite the painkillers before they slid into proper position.
"No." he replied in a biting tone. "I just read about it once, somewhere." Actually, Saren not only knew what he was doing, he was even quite adept at field medicine. It just wasn't a skill he often needed or employed.
"Yes. That's what I figured." Nihlus' voice trailed off again.
Saren didn't reply, but snapped another plate into alignment, and the younger turian swore quite colourfully. "You might want to save the more expressive phrases for later on." Saren commented helpfully. "Eight more plates to go."
Nihlus growled something Saren couldn't quite make out, and the Spectre decided to humour him. "What was that?" he asked, setting the next plate.
"I said I hope you at least are having fun." Nihlus groaned.
Saren blinked in mild confusion. "As a matter of fact, I'm not. Why would I?"
"Oh. Wrong assumption, then. My fault." There was a pause, and another snarled curse as Saren calmly continued his work. "I'm surprised that you even thought to rescue me."
Saren snorted. "I invested too much time in training you already to lose you to a YMIR mech. The prospect of the paperwork required to explain your untimely demise to the Council makes the alternative also appear a lot less appealing."
"Ow. And there I thought you did that because you liked me." Nihlus' tone gave an admirable suggestion of sarcasm.
Saren approved of the sarcasm, if nothing else. "You're delirious." he stated, "Maybe that second dose of painkillers was a bit too high for you." Two more plates straightened with an ugly sound.
"Too high? You have to be kidding. This feels like you're ripping out my spine."
"Stop complaining." Saren carefully hid his amusement. "You're lucky there's not more damage to your back. Next time, try not to get into close quarter combat with a YMIR mech. Or if you absolutely have to, at least watch where it puts down its feet."
Nihlus' reply was replaced by another low snarl. "Damnit, if that's supposed your friendly, upbeat side, it's no wonder you don't have many friends."
Saren decided that his trainee really wasn't quite in his right mind right now, and had even a good reason for that for once. He righted another pair of scales. "That's as careful as I can do this."
"I'd ask what you consider painful if that's you at your most careful, but I'm afraid I have already seen that, so I won't. Never could figure out just how insane you really are, and how much is pretend."
Saren shook his head again. "Keep wondering, then." A last wrenching creak that ended in a sharp crack made the younger turian dig his talons into the biobed, then Saren ran a claw over Nihlus' back again. There was some fresh blood from realigning the scales, but not much.
"Try to arch your back upwards. I want to see whether your mobility is still impaired or not."
"Thanks, but no. I'm not even going to try-" The sentence ended in a strangled hiss-yelp as he shot up in reflex as Saren applied the tip of a sharp claw to a gap in the plates in Nihlus' side with scientific precision. Saren nodded in satisfaction as Nihlus sank down again, ignoring the very impolite, not to mention incorrect, observations about his person that the younger turian made not quite under his breath.
"It would appear that your mobility's restored." Saren commented in a level tone. "And your insinuations about my parentage are pure speculation and in fact very far off the mark." He applied some medigel to his trainee's back, then closed the whole area off with a rectangle of flexible, thin, self-adhesive bandage that immediately molded itself to the shape of the plates beneath. Hopefully, this would keep them in place and avoid any further slipping until they had fully reattached themselves to the tissue below. It should also help to keep the risk of infection down. Nihlus probably had several days of acute discomfort ahead of him, but he'd be back to his normal self soon enough.
There was a certain relief in that, Saren allowed. From a purely professional point of view, of course.
Somehow he had almost gotten used to the annoyance Nihlus was representing. On closer examination, that thought was disturbing.
"You'll be fit for duty again in a week or two. You can use that time to catch up on your more theoretical studies." he told Nihlus.
There was no immediate reply, and without thinking about it, he brushed the back of his fingers against Nihlus' mandible. It was just a calming gesture, warranted under the circumstances, and while it could be read as comforting, he trusted that Nihlus knew better than to do that.
The younger turian relaxed.
"Which means you are going to bury me in paperwork, news reports and weapons manuals." Nihlus groaned, his subtones holding a lot more pain than they had when Saren had been realigning his spine plates, the Spectre noted with vague puzzlement. "Don't try to be comforting. Just don't. You're no good at it. Next time, just leave me, that will hurt me less in the end."
Saren regarded his trainee silently and waited for a few beats.
Nihlus opened a bleary green eye, clearly worried. "You are aware that the last was a joke?" he enquired cautiously. "I wasn't being serious?"
The Spectre snorted. "If I'd taken anything you said since you woke up seriously, some wrenched spinal plates would have been the least of your worries. Now get some rest before I reconsider."
He left his trainee in the medbay, quite confident that Nihlus could take care of himself for now. Besides, he had some additional work to do. In truth, he hadn't intended to task Nihlus with filing paperwork and reading reports and manuals for the next few weeks. It would appear that Nihlus' expectations had been quite different, though, and so he would have to meet them. There were appearances to uphold and standards to maintain, after all.
And in addition to that, it amused him to do so.