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He couldn’t breathe. There was too much dust and a weird pressure on his chest, and strange noises in his ears and—
He couldn’t breathe .
He struggled in his panic and this brought a fierce, terrible pain through his right leg and up his right side.
On the other hand, the agony opened his lungs and he drew in gasping, dust laden breaths.
He could see a piece of durasteel beam over his head. Large chunks of concrete were all around him—twisted wires emerging from their shattered remains like strange mechanical vines.
He was aware of what he was hearing now—-cries from other victims and the wail of sirens. No one had expected this attack, he reflected. Not even their Jedi.
He found a rhythm for shallow breaths so as not to cause such agony. He could taste iron in his mouth and wondered if that was indicative of a more serious problem.
Likely.
But he couldn’t move very much—his right arm was trapped and both of his legs.
Still—he had to try. He wanted to live.
Venka took as deep a breath as he could manage, and shouted.
**************
“Sweetheart!” Han hacked and spat disgusting sludge from his mouth, half blind from the debris and dust. “Leia!”
He stumbled to his feet, feeling the hot stickiness of blood from various abrasions, but nothing seemed serious. He felt for his blaster.
Still on his hip.
He rubbed at streaming, irritated eyes, irrationally angry that they weren’t working as they ought.
“PRINCESS!” he hollered, finding some sort of focus. He was stamping firmly on the panic that rose whenever his eyes were affected—-the carbon freezing and temporary blindness had a been a terrifying period—-but at last he heard her tones of command rising above the confusion around them.
Moments later she was in his arms and he breathed in the floral scent of her, heavily laced with smoke and sweat.
“You’re not hurt?” she asked anxiously, pulling back to look him over.
“No more than you,” he replied, profound relief bringing back his composure. “We need to get back to the ship. If they were bold enough to attack this area---"
He stopped, watching Leia’s somewhat distant expression.
“Piett or the Lady?” he asked after a moment. She blinked and looked back at him to smile.
“Both actually. The Lady is letting him know we’re all right.”
“You know it’s really helpful to my space cred," Han told her, "I can tell people that my girl is close friends with nineteen kilometers of whup ass.”
She gave him the predictable eye roll, but he could tell that she wasn’t altogether unhappy.
It was in that moment, memory struck Han like a stun blast.
“Wait. Was…was Venka with us?”
“I thought he was the group ahead of us,” Leia responded, frowning a little.
Kark, kark, no…
Han shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think someone called him back to ask him something…”
He paused, trying to remember…
More and more rescue workers were arriving on the scene, and both emergency transports as well as fighters were streaking through the air.
But Han was certain. He gazed at the smoking pile of destruction in dismay for a beat before he moved toward it.
“Han?”
“Need you, Your Worship. You have to find him!”
And he appreciated her more than he could express, when she didn’t question, but joined him immediately.
*************
He had no more breath. No more energy to call out.
Venka was reasonably certain he was losing blood at a disturbing rate given how depleted he felt.
Was this really the way it was going to be?
He’d imagined dying in battle. Sometimes at Lord Vader’s hand back in those days.
More and more, living until retirement had been looking good. Settle down. Maybe a family. Anders was a somewhat unexpected recent development. He felt bad that he wouldn’t be able to say good bye to her.
He tried to move again, but the pain and his exhaustion were too much.
However, as he made peace with his fate, he heard something familiar.
“Venka!”
He waited for that voice to say his name again. Had he just imagined it in his extremity?
“Admiral!” called a feminine voice.
“Force damn it, Tom, don’t make me explain this to Piett!” snapped Solo. It was Solo calling for him somewhere above the rubble…
“Here…” he croaked, reaching up his free arm.
“Stand back, Han,” came the Princess’s voice, and then Venka had the best view in the house as a massive pile of rubble moved smoothly into the air above him and then out of his eyeline. He felt the rumble in his bones as it landed much further away, and then Solo’s face appeared, bloody and worried.
“Hey,” the Corellian said, trying to sound cocky but failing. He reached down and grasped Venka’s bloody fingers.
“Sorry we took so long. I can see it’s bad. Medics are coming.”
The Princess’s delicate features appeared beside Solo and she bit her lip before she reached out a hand toward Venka.
“What…?” he murmured, but then felt it.
Oh .
So that was the Force.
He’d never had it used on him before and the feeling was odd in the extreme. But he also knew that she was stopping the flow of blood from wherever it was coming from.
Both of them stayed there, Solo gripping his hand and the Princess keeping him alive, until further help came.
Things were an intense flurry of activity after that, but Venka realized eventually that he was on a shuttle, wrapped in blankets and legs well splinted.
The last thing he recalled before he finally lost consciousness was Solo’s firm hold on his hand, and the voice of a friend.
“We have you, Tom.”