Half expecting the General himself to be stretchered in, it came as both a surprise and a relief to see his flaming red hair and stern expression march into the medical bay. He looked furious. His face reflected the thunderous roar of the as yet unknown patient being thrust into the room on a hover dolly. Aneep could not yet see the injured party, she could only hear his agonised moans from behind the storm trooper who had rolled him in. Peering behind the trooper curiously she could see gloved fingers flexing from between the gurneys bars in spasms of pain. She supposed that it must be a commander given the colour of his uniform. Though which commander would require this level of secrecy and security she had no idea.

General Hux flicked an irritated glance at the trooper.

"Leave us." He barked, and the grunt turned tail and exited.

Aneep approached the gurney with her medi-scan kit in her hand.

"What can you tell me about the nature of the injury?" She enquired, as she leaned over the top of the dolly to see her patient.

The General blinked and replied, "It appears to cause him immense pain."

Looking down properly for the first time she assessed her patient carefully. Laid writhing on the stretcher was a young man that she had never seen before. His dark wavy hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and had been flattened by the constant rocking of his head as his body jerked with pulses of pain. His face, whilst undeniably handsome was off set by two rather startling features. The first being an ugly slash torn through the right side of his face from shoulder to temple and the second being a set of dark terrifying eyes that stared and fumed with a rage that Aneep could barely comprehend. Anger rolled off the figure like waves, it was almost palpable. The air around him shook with it, the floor of the medical bay seemed to vibrate with his fury. It scared her immensely. She felt it in the pit of her stomach like writhing, twisting serpents, so much so that she almost didn't want to reach out her hand and touch the figure. Surely that rage would lash out and strike at her like some invisible switch. She straightened her back and steadied her resolve. She was a doctor damn it, it was her duty to fix the injured. Aneep took a deep breath and tried to swallow her fears. She bid her hands not to shake as she took his face between her palms and turned his head gently towards her in order to study the wound. As soon as she touched him those wrathful eyes snapped into hers and as much as she wanted to stay cool and professional she found herself looking away. Instead she focused on the unusual lesion that was torn across his face. The wound was odd, torn deep into his flesh and yet did not bleed. The edges of it were cauterised and yet the flesh was not blackened or charred and yet it still burned red hot to the touch. She furrowed her brow with confusing. Aneep had never seen a wound like this before. In her mind she cast her memory back to her training in the corps. She seemed to remember hearing about wounds similar to this many years ago when she was under the tutelage at the corps from the oldest and most eccentric professor in charge of the medical archive. She'd been wanting ready access to more data pads and earning extra credit in the archive was the best way of achieving this. The old woman was called Dr Hirant Jok and had liked to regale her young helpers with tall tales of her exploits aboard an important medical frigate during the Clone Wars. The details had always been fairly vague. She'd often described treating wounds that seemed similar in description to this one, but she'd always boasted that they'd been inflicted by a specific weapon… but that couldn't possibly be the case here, could it?

Aneep turned to the General, "What weapon inflicted this?"

Clearly agitated Hux replied, "I did not witness it, how the hell should I know."

Aneep looked again at the mysterious patient in puzzlement. This was a lightsabre wound, it had to be. But that weapon hadn't existed in decades and the only example of one that she knew of was carried by…

"Sir," she asked, her voice drying as she spoke, "is this…is the patient Commander Ren?"

Hux snorted in disgust. "Commander? Ren has no rank in The Order. He is the Supreme Leaders pet and I must suffer his mistakes."

The air around the gurney seemed to bleed with malice. The General took a small step away from the stretcher and the man who was staring coldly up at him from it.

Aneep was shocked. She had never considered that beneath the mask would lay youth and beauty. She'd always expected…well it's hard to say what she'd expected, the man always wore a mask so she'd never tried to imagine what was underneath it. Being surrounded by helmeted troopers all day you tend to not consider what each individual may look like. It was one of the first teachings of The Order, to give up on a sense of individuality and work instead towards the collective greater good.

"You can wonder over it later," she told herself, "there's still work to be done now."

Ren also had a nasty looking wound to the left side of his abdomen. This wound was more recognisable to her, it was a powerful blaster strike and something she was used to handling. Leaning further to look at it more closely she could see that this wound bled openly. It was slow but it was still active. It would seem that Ren's tight surcoat and belt had acted as a natural tourniquet. Lucky for him at the time but it meant trouble for Aneep when removing his clothes to attend to it. This was the more pressing matter. The facial wounds, whilst clearly painful were mainly cosmetic, but this side injury was life threatening.

She called over one of medical droids, "Administer three units of numbing agent." The droid made to move towards the stretcher but was suddenly and violently thrown across the room by some invisible force. The General back further away with fear in his eyes whilst Aneep's heart beat a tattoo with the shock of the sudden action.

A strained deep voice floated from the medi-bed, "No numbing agent."

Aneep forced herself to look at him in the eye and prayed her voice did not shake. "But Sir…" she began, but he cut her off.

"Nothing for the pain."

She looked up at General Hux for support but instead found him rolling his eyes with impatience. "I'll leave you to your job Doctor." He drawled, contempt dripping through every word. "He's to be taken to the Supreme Leader as soon as he's fixed. I trust that will not be long."

He frame it as a statement as opposed to a question. Aneep found herself pricking at the insult.

"Of course Sir. My work will be efficient, as it always is." She couldn't keep the contempt from out of her voice.

Hux nodded curtly and they turned on his heel and marched out of the door.

She watched him leave with anger still prickling at her skin. "Starched up prig living off daddy's fame." She fumed.

A small laugh floated up from the gurney. She hadn't said the words aloud, but it was as though Ren had heard them anyway.

"Impossible." She thought. "It must have been something else that's amused him." Though considering what had happened to the droid that lay smoking in a newly formed divot in the medical bay's far wall perhaps she couldn't be so sure.

Aneep hurried to her medi-kit and removed a bacta gel patch. The side wound needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later and she removed the patch from its casing as she crossed back to the stretcher. She had to stop the bleeding before she could move him in the ward properly. Removing her laser scalpel from her pocket she look at Ren earnestly.

"I am going to have to cut you out of your clothing Sir." She said, and was proud at how little her voice shook.

Ren simply nodded. She tried to explain further.

"Your belt is the only thing that is currently stopping serious blood loss Sir. I will have to place a lot of pressure on the wound whilst I remove your uniform to administer the bacta patch to make sure that you do not bleed out."

Ren nodded again.

Aneep sighed inwardly. "That process is going to be extremely painful Sir…"

"Just do it." He replied firmly.

Aneep nodded and did as she was bid. Though he barely cried out at all, his painful rage still shook the whole ward.