In the meantime, Mr.N wasn't so lucky. He had been taken away to an Imperial Star Destroyer's interrogation chamber. Others had been taken too, but the main person of importance with him was Dave. The interrogation chamber was bleak, bare and metallic. In front of him, Mr.N saw 3 of the scariest people in the Galaxy. Whitesnake, Tarkin and the Sith Lord Vader. Vader had even dismissed the official interrogator. 'I think I will undertake this myself, this needs to be done properly, after all!' He had ominously said.

Tarkin raised his hand. 'Now, after all that disgraceful rioting in Nottingham we have some leave to find out what happened and who the guilty parties are.' Mr.N thought to himself, we know who the guilty parties are, you people, when Tarkin continued,

'That's the official excuse anyway. As it happens, now we have you just where we want you. We want any information we can get out of you about missing persons, Union meetings etc. Plus a statement denouncing the strikers would be nice.'

Well the torture wasn't pleasant. No need to go into details is there? To be honest, in his pain, Mr.N would really have said anything towards the end of the session. But it seemed that Vader wasn't interested in a confession at that time. He kept on saying things like, 'Today, this is just the first level of pain. I can do much worse than this. Wait till tomorrow!' Perhaps Vader was interested in just causing pain for this day!

Indeed, Mr.N said to Dave who cell he was sharing, 'I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. Maybe tomorrow I will confess or tell everything. Even if I have anything useful to tell, which I am not sure.'

'What do you mean confess tomorrow? I've already done so today! I've told them anything they wish for.'

'So what's the point of further interrogation?'

'I think, perhaps, they don't believe me!'

The next day there was a worst sight for Mr.N. As Vader opened the interrogation door, beside him was the sight of the Emperor. Emperor Palpatine, dictator of the galaxy and one of the scariest and most powerful men that had ever lived. Palpatine gloated, 'So, this is the person that has caused us so much surprising and unnecessary trouble. I think the time has come for our revenge.'

Oddly, powerful as he was, Palpatine seemed to think that Mr.N was the most important of the hostages, whereas of course, Dave was. Even sith lords make mistakes. Palpatine looked with his wizened face towards Mr.N and raised his hands, apparently ready to launch bolts of fire and scare Mr.N some more. Which wasn't really necessary!

Mr.N was now badly tortured. It seemed to him that his entire body was invaded with hairy things with sharp teeth slowly eating his flesh. It was of course an illusion caused by Sith force power, but it seemed as much as it was real to him. He would have liked a chance to confess, but as he couldn't speak with pain, couldn't really do it! When suddenly there was relief.

An underling came with a message to the Emperor. Palpatine swore a oath of ancient, sith power. 'Oh, well, I have to go,' said he.

'Is that really necessary, you where doing so well!' exclaimed Whitesnake.

'I am afraid so. It's an intergalactic plastic distribution meeting. I have to attend, dull as it is. Last time I didn't some bureaucratic idiot called Gollum wasted a Billion credits of Imperial finance!' With that the Empire of the Galaxy departed in a dark side haze.

One irony was that Mr.N did have some information which Vader might have found useful. But only if Vader asked Mr.N in the correct manner. For all his power and use of the force, sometimes Vader could be as stupid as Baldrick. Witness at the moment when he seemed to be more concerned in causing his enemies pain than getting useful information out of them. Sometimes a common Sith mistake. In this case a crucial one!

Vader probably thought he had all the time in the world. But then there was a buzz and someone came to see him. He was dressed as a simple Imperial orderly, but Mr.N thought him familair somehow.

'Prisoner transfer!' the orderly said to Vader.

'Prisoner transfer? What in the name of space are you talking about? I am the only one that authorizes prisoner transfer's around here!'

'Not in this case, I believe!' when with a flash, the orderly revieled himself to be Mugwort in disguise.

'Mugwort!' cried Whitesnake firing a shot at him. Mugwort deflected the shot with his fingers. Vader paced before him menacingly.

'Do not pandy your pathetic, amateurish, Childish flirtations of the force with me, the Dark lord of the Sith and the most powerful force user in the Galaxy. I think the time has finally come to show who is the real black wizard in the cosmos!'

'Not on this occasion I am afraid,' Mugwort waved to Mr.N and Dave. 'I think I'll have you know that we are aware of how you took some of our officials. Now, I know that many in the Galaxy won't believe this, but remember the constituency. If our officials, including myself are not released this instant, I'm afraid, you will have a total walk-out on your hands. Now then, aarggeee!'

Mugwort held his throat. Vader was performing his usual strangulation using the force technique.

Up until Tarkin interrupted him irritably. 'Vader, realise him. You obviously have been busy and don't understand the delicate balance you could disrupt. The last thing we want right now is the entire Turbosteel workforce out. I suggest you look, if you can, at the Galactic balance sheet, and see what that would mean!' Tarkin was annoyed. For all his strength, why didn't Vader understand simple Galactic politics? Or perhaps economics.

One person who was impressed as always with the relationship between Tarkin and Vader was Whitesnake. To his knowledge, Tarkin had no kind of Force capability but he was possibly just about the only person in the galaxy that had the balls to talk to Darth Vader like that. Had Whitesnake tried that he would have been without a windpipe pretty quick he would have been sure.

Especially as Vader obeyed Tarkin in his way and said, 'Well, you know best here,' and without a further word, departed out on a mission of his own, releasing Mugwort.

Tarkin quietly moved up to Mugwort. But he had a few words of his own. 'All right, you have this round. A minor victory as it is. But we are still the Empire. Think that soon we won't be able to deal with a few strikers? So, on your way!'

In the ship on the way on Mr.N breathed out his thanks. 'That was a little close. Thought for a moment there, Vader was not going to listen to reason and execute us anyway.'

'He might well have done had Tarkin not been there.'

'But what about my confessions? Some of those things I confessed to might have been a bit embarrassing. And others.'

'Oh, come Dave, confessions extracted under torture? Who's going to believe that?'

Nimbus 3 came into view. Dave smiled, 'Well, one thing I could do with it is a beer.'

To frowns from his companions. It was a little strange that some people could have worse enemies than the most powerful dictator in the Galaxy's history on their case, but Dave did. It was called alcohol. A serious addiction which he couldn't see or control and sometimes had a significant effect upon his performance.