Mel swung her feet back and forth, back and forth, dangling them off of the table she'd claimed as her own. She was a rather pointless addition to this un-meeting, as she had absolutely nothing polite to say, but there really hadn't been anywhere else to go.

No one else seemed any happier, which was at least understandable. Obi-wan seemed somewhere between bored, exasperated and concerned, and looked ready to simply throw up his hands and walk out of the room.

Vader simply looked angsty, but there wasn't any surprise there. The governor (a large, beefy man with the telltale redness of a whisky devotee) seemed more concerned to how this would affect Alderraan's stance in the Empire's eyes, and whether there was any way he could smooth things over before the choice was made to eliminate them. He was pressing the uncertainty; pointing out again and again how likely it was for the girl to be in another system entirely. Obviously, this wasn't going over well.

Terryal, whose inclusion seemed almost as pointless as Mel's own, looked weirdly impassive, as though it didn't matter either way if Katie was ever found. He seemed to have been intended as a moderating factor, (though Mel did have to acknowledge his importance) but it really didn't seem to be working out. Rather, his impassivity, the indifference, seemed to be irking Vader even more than anything else. Of course, there always could have been another factor at play that Mel was not informed of, some dynamic she did not know to recognize.

However, these musings were pervaded by a sense of boredom tinged with a guilt that ruined any sort of enjoyment in them. She couldn't help but feel almost jealous of the 'adventure' her friend was getting, though feeling so was indescribably selfish, and more than a little stupid. So all in all she was in hardly a better mood than anyone else was, and it looked like it was going to stay that way.

"Now, you're really being unreasonable…" The Governor tried to convince as gently as he could, though his eyes held deep, self-centered concern.

"I am being perfectly reasonable." Vader replied in the sort of scary-calm voice that made it impossible to believe so. It didn't help that he generally looked somewhat deranged in the morning, and even more so without sleep.

"You're both perfectly insane." Obi-wan declared, throwing up his hands while rolling his eyes rather theatrically.

"I second the motion," Mel replied with emphasis, and perhaps a little too loudly. All eyes turned to her, and she realized at the wrong moment that this was a perfectly fine statement for Obi-Wan, because he was, in fact, Obi-Wan. But coming from a padawan, and, in Vader's eyes, a rather useless one at that, this became something of an extremely nasty insult.

Vader sent her a look of imperial annoyance that screamed her not being good enough for him to actually glare at. "You. This is your fault." She was the target he needed for all this pent-up stress. Why, he wouldn't put it past her to have been involved, selling out her friend to the Resistance for that damned 'greater good'.

Everyone else in the room familiar with Vader had tensed up, realizing the instability of the situation. The Governor, however, had relaxed some as the pressure was off him. If he made it through this he was planning to retire somewhere very far away…

Mel met his eyes rather recklessly, sick of being nice. Sick of being bored, being alone, and most of all sick of having to listen to him. "My fault? I wasn't the one groping a whore in front of her."

His look darkened, and anyone else would have backed off, fearing for his or her lives. But Mel was far too caught up in the drama, relishing a chance to finally break even. Interrupting whatever he was about to say she continued unreasoningly, "Besides, she would have left you anyway after she found out what happened to your last girlfriend."

At this Vader looked positively murderous, and she'd jumped dramatically 'Quick Death' to ' Very Lengthy Torture' in his plans. Ripping out her lungs via her eye sockets was looking rather appealing… "You listen here-"

Obi-wan, preferring his padawan in one piece and breathing, wasn't about to let this happen. "You won't touch her."

There was a brief but complete silence, more of a standoff than a truce. Vader looked somewhat surprised at Obi-wan's interference, and (if possible) even more supremely pissed off, the Governor looked as though he thought this thrilling entertainment, and Terryal just watched, blinking cold-bloodedly.

Mel, all wounded pride and injured dignity, wasn't about to let her Master get involved. Grabbing the lightsaber off of his belt as rashly as it is possible to do so, she turned to glare at Vader. "Watch him try." She declared with all the aplomb such fighting words deserved, striking a rather heroic pose.

Vader was not amused in the least. With something of a painful thump everyone else in the room flew to the wall, pinned there and leaving Mel standing alone. "Oh, you're mine now…" He murmured in his best evil-villain sort of voice, half-grinning with anticipation.

Mel backed up a step, scared utterly shitless but loath to let him know. "But you know it was your fault, don't you?" She continued, spitting insults to mask her very real terror. Some would have thought this Freudian, but all it accomplished was making Vader even angrier.

"You," he snarled, yanking the saber from her hand with Force. "Ruin everything." This was something of a stupid line, but he'd never been as good as Obi-wan in thinking up dramatic dialogue on the spot.

Mel would most likely have replied as smartly as before, had she not been driven to her knees by sudden excruciating pain. Every blood vessel in her body had suddenly pressurized, pressing against her cells. Her head was throbbing with this force, her eyes feeling as though they were about to burst from her face, and her skull to explode. She screamed once, before the pain in every square inch of flesh became too much.

For the first time that day Vader smiled, watching her kneeling with the pain at his feet. "Do you have any idea how much I've wanted to do this ever since I met you? All you've done is get in my way. Too stupid to know when to just shut up. So wrapped up in your Code you think you're a hero." Finally he had a chance to properly communicate his feelings for the girl. If it hadn't been for Obi-wan she'd have already been dead. "You don't deserve to live." Yes, he was at last going to get to kill her, as slowly and as painfully as he could manage. And, what a bonus, he could make Obi-wan watch…

Mel, drama and melodramatic cliché as much a part of her as her bones and blood, managed to raise her head to look at him. "I'd rather die pretending to be a hero than live knowing I'm a coward." With that she dredged up the last dregs of her Force, flinging a small vase at his head.

He dodged and it shattered into a million crimson pieces against the far wall. This took barely a second but it was distraction enough for Obi-wan to free himself, and to yell, "She knows!"

Vader looked at him, puzzled but still fairly calm given the circumstances.

"She knows!" Obi-wan called again, scrambling for words. He hadn't really had time to think this out first.

"Knows what?" Vader really didn't want to be playing games just now thinking that this had better be good. Mel looked from one to the other, trying to comprehend what going on. The pain had lessened a few degrees, but it was still light-years from tolerable.

"She knows where Katie is!"

This statement had rather the opposite effect than as intended, as Vader's eyes flashed anew and Mel convulsed in a new wave of pain. "Then why didn't she say anything?" He inquired with forced calm, watching her writhe.

"Because… the meeting had just started and all… I had been about to bring it up…" Obi-wan tried to say, scrambling for words. Mel, getting the gist of the conversation, forced her eyes upward to Vader's, and nodded rather pathetically.

The pain in her veins vanished, as he slammed her to the wall hand on her throat. "You let them take her, didn't you?" He snarled quietly, eyes slitted. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't just kill you now…"

"Because then she wouldn't be able to tell you where Katie is," Obi-wan interjected rather logically. Only Mel would have been able to hear the fear in his voice, had she not been preoccupied.

"Take your padawan to the holding cells." Vader commanded, flinging Mel some ten feet to the door, and pushing Obi-wan after. "You have an hour to get the information from her. If she doesn't break by then… I'll torture her myself." Slamming the door in their faces, he looked as though he hoped she'd last the hour.

Obi-wan heaved a great sigh, though it was certainly not one of relief. Gathering up his half-conscious padawan in his arms, he started off for the holding cells.

"What was that about?" she murmured, unable to focus on any his spinning six heads properly.

"Saving your life. But only for an hour."