Wehutti stopped in front of the gate and pressed his eye against the iris-reader. The gate clicked open and he gestured for them to go inside.
They stepped into a walled courtyard. In front of the house was a rack filled with weapons.
"I'm afraid you must leave your lightsabers here," Wehutti said apologetically. He unstrapped his own weapons from their holsters. "This is Melida headquarters. It's a weapon-free zone."
Qui-Gon hesitated a fraction. Obi-Wan waited to see what he would do. A Jedi is never separated from his or her lightsaber.
"I'm sorry, but if you break this rule the negotiations will go badly for you," Wehutti said in a conciliatory tone. "They need proof of your trust since you ask for theirs. But it is your decision."
Slowly, Qui-Gon withdrew his lightsaber. He nodded at Obi-Wan to do the same. He slipped it into the rack, then took Obi-Wan's and slipped it next to his.
Wehutti smiled. "I'm sure this will go smoothly. This way."
Qui-Gon gestured for Obi-Wan to step in first as he gathered the folds of his cloak more closely around him. Wehutti followed directly behind them.
The hallway was dark, the stone floor pitted with holes. Wehutti led the way to a room on the left. Dark material was hung over the windows, shutting out any light. A lamp in one corner emitted a tiny glow that failed to chase away the shadows.
Obi-Wan made out a group of men and women sitting at a long table against the wall. They appeared to be waiting for them.
"The Melida Council," Wehutti explained to them in a whisper. "They rule the Melida people." He closed the heavy door behind them with a clang. Obi-Wan heard a lock spring. He glanced at Qui-Gon, trying to read if his Master felt the same jolt of apprehension.
"I have returned, comrades," Wehutti announced. He spread his arms to indicate Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. "And I have brought two more Jedi hostages for our grand cause!"
Wehutti had barely finished speaking when Qui-Gon moved. His lightsaber was activated and in his hand while the smile still beamed on Wehutti's face. Qui-Gon whirled, striking Wehutti on the shoulder. At the same time, he tossed Obi-Wan's lightsaber to him, hoping the boy was prepared to catch it.
Qui-Gon had been ready for Wehutti's betrayal. He did not need the Force to tell him that Wehutti had led them into a trap. His instincts had told him so before they had even reached the gates of the Inner Hub. When Wehutti had asked them to leave their weapons, Qui-Gon had only feigned his hesitation. He had foreseen the request and was already planning to get around it. It had been easy to unfurl his cloak to cover his recapture of the lightsabers. Even clever men can see only what they want to see. Wehutti had already been congratulating himself on his own ingenuity in luring the Jedi into his trap.
Wehutti fell with a cry of rage and pain. Obi-Wan activated his lightsaber.
"The door," Qui-Gon said to him, and prepared to defend himself against the group seated at the table. Several had half-risen, but the remaining Melida were still too shocked to react.
He heard Obi-Wan strike a blow to the lock. Two warriors, a man and a woman, had been quicker to react than the others. They started toward Qui-Gon, blasters in hand.
Suddenly, a light blazed on. Obi-Wan must have activated the lighting while he struggled with the door. It was better not to fight in the dark, though every Jedi is trained to be able to do so.
Qui-Gon suppressed a start of surprise when the Melida soldiers were fully revealed. All of them had already been severely wounded. He saw evidence of synth-flesh covering faces and exposed skin, as well as plastoid limbs. Two of the group wore breath-masks.
The Melida and the Daan were truly destroying each other, piece by piece.
This was only a fleeting thought, gone as quickly as it had come. Qui-Gon knew he must concentrate on the threat. He deflected the blaster fire as he ran to Obi-Wan, who had easily melted the lock. The door stood open. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon raced from the room into the corridor.
Pounding footsteps overhead made them pause. A red light blinked insistently on the wall. Bars suddenly slammed down over the front door.
"Someone triggered a silent alarm," Qui-Gon said.
"We'll never get out that door," Obi-Wan warned.
They turned toward the hallway, racing to find a back exit. They knew they had little time before the rest of the Melida soldiers found them.
As they passed various points in the hallway, an electronic beep sounded.
"Those are location sensors," Qui-Gon said. "They're tracking us. They know exactly where we are."
At the end of the hallway they came to a heavily fortified door. Qui-Gon turned to the left and opened the first door he saw. They would have to get out a window if they could.
The room was high-ceilinged and full of stored equipment: circuits, nav-computers, sensor parts, dismantled droids. Qui-Gon crossed to the window. Electro-bars ran in a grid over the pane. The security device would keep out life-forms and resist some forms of weaponry. But it was no match for a Jedi lightsaber. Qui-Gon cut through the bars with one swipe, leaving a gap big enough for them to leap through. Then he did the same with the window pane.
"Go on, Padawan," he urged Obi-Wan.
The boy leaped easily through the gap. Qui-Gon followed. They found themselves in a walled and fortified courtyard. The wall would be easily scaled, Qui-Gon calculated. Too easily.
"Come on, Qui-Gon," Obi-Wan said impatiently.
"Wait." Qui-Gon walked closer to the wall. He crouched down and studied it. "It's mined," he told Obi-Wan. "Thermal detonators. If we climb it or even leap over it, the infrared sensors will blow us sky-high."
"So we're trapped."
"I'm afraid so," Qui-Gon answered, his mind sifting through the possibilities. They would have to reenter the Melida fortress and fight their way out. They didn't have much time. The soldiers would figure out where they were in seconds.
Qui-Gon whirled, his lightsaber raised, as he heard a metallic scraping sound. But no Melida warrior was in sight. He tracked the sound to the floor. A small sewer grate was being pushed back.
A small, dirty hand shot out of the opening and beckoned.
Obi-Wan looked at Qui-Gon, puzzled. "What should we do?" he whispered.
An ironic voice floated up from the grate. "Go ahead, talkdroids. Have a debate. I'll wait. We have plenty of time."
Qui-Gon heard shouting and running in the fortress. Any moment now, soldiers would appear at the window.
"Let's go," he told Obi-Wan.
He waited while his Padawan slithered into the opening. Qui-Gon followed blindly, his feet searching and finding the rung of a ladder leading downward. Hoping he hadn't made a mistake, Qui-Gon climbed down.
Obi-Wan felt his way down the rickety metal ladder. He stepped off the last rung into ankle-deep water. Qui-Gon followed, moving with his usual grace, surprising for such a large man.
It was impossible to tell if their rescuer was a boy or a girl. The figure wore a hooded tunic, and pressed a dirty finger against its lips. Then he or she raised a finger and pointed above. The meaning was clear. If they weren't absolutely quiet, the guards above would hear.
The footsteps above were loud, the voices angry and insistent. The Jedi's rescuer turned and walked very slowly through the water, raising one foot and slipping it carefully back into the water so that no splash was heard. Obi-Wan followed the example. Softly, quietly, they moved farther down the tunnel.
The walls were shored up with splintered beams. Obi-Wan eyed them uneasily. The tunnel did not seem very secure to him. Still, it was an improvement over fighting his way out of a heavily armed fortress.
As soon as they had put some distance between themselves and the entrance, they picked up their pace. They walked through what felt like miles of tunnel, slogging through water and muck. Occasionally, the water was up to their knees. Their rescuer led them through old sewer tunnels, and the smell was terrible. Obi-Wan tried not to gag. Their rescuer seemed not to notice it, but kept up the same do
gged, determined pace.
At last they came to a large vaulted space illuminated by several glow rods mounted on the walls. The ground was dry here, the air noticeably fresher. The room was dotted with rectangular stone boxes overgrown with moss. More lined the walls.
"Tombs," Qui-Gon murmured. "It's an old resting ground."
One of the tombs, scraped clean of moss, gave off a pale white gleam in the darkness. Stools were drawn up around it. A group of young boys and girls - some the same age as Obi-Wan, some younger - sat eating from bowls at the makeshift table.
A tall boy with close-cropped dark hair noticed their entrance. He stood. "I found them," their rescuer announced.
The boy nodded. "Welcome, Jedi," he said solemnly. "We are the Young."
Around them, the walls seemed to move. Shapes took form and became boys and girls, appearing out of the shadows and from behind the tombs to gather around Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon.
Startled, Obi-Wan gazed around at their faces. Most of them were thin and dressed in rags. All wore makeshift weapons tied onto belts or shoulder holsters. They gazed at him curiously, without any attempt to be polite.
The tall boy moved forward. He wore a battered chestplate of plastoid armor. "I am Nield. I lead the Young. This is Cerasi."
Their rescuer threw back the hood, and Obi-Wan saw that she was a girl of about his age. Her copper hair was cut short and ragged. She had a small face with a pointed chin. Her pale green eyes were like crystals, glittering even in the dark vault.
"Thank you for rescuing us," Qui-Gon said. "Now, can you tell us why you did?"
"You would have been a pawn in the game of war," Nield said with a shrug. "We prefer that the game be over."
"I saw graffiti on walls about the Young," Obi-Wan said. "Are you Melida or Daan?"
Cerasi shook her head. "We are everyone," she said, lifting her chin proudly.
"And you want the war to stop?" Qui-Gon asked.
"There is a cease-fire," Obi-Wan pointed out.
Nield waved his hand. "The war will start again. Tomorrow, next week - it always does. Even the oldest among the elders don't remember what the original grievance was. They don't remember why the war began. They only remember the battles. They keep archives and go once a week to remind each other of the blood that has been spilled. They used to make us go, too."
"The Halls of Evidence," Obi-Wan said, nodding.
"Yes, they pour money into those halls while the cities decay around us," Nield said contemptuously. "While the children starve and the ill die for lack of med supplies. Both Melida and Daan use up huge tracts of land while there is no land left to farm, no land left that has not been scarred by war or taken up by the preparation for more war."
"Yet they go on fighting," Cerasi put in. "The hatred never stops."
"And who do our glorious leaders defend?" Nield asked. "Only the dead." He gestured at the tombs. "The dead are everywhere on Melida/Daan. We have no spaces left to put them. This is an old burial ground, and there are many others above us. The Young are for the living. It is up to us to take back the planet. The middle generation is gone - our parents are dead. Any who are left have joined with the elders to keep on fighting. Right now the tactics are sniping and sabotage, since most of the weaponry and ammunition were depleted in the last great battle."
"There are hardly any starfighters left," Cerasi told them. "Both the Melida and the Daan are pouring whatever money they have into factories to make more weapons. They are forcing children to work in them. They are forcing anyone over fourteen to join the army. That's why we came underground. It was either this or die."
Obi-Wan gazed around the vault at the faces of the boys and girls around him. From what he had seen in his short time on the planet, he knew that Nield and Cerasi were right. The elders were destroying the planet. The time-honored moral law of improving a world for future generations did not hold here. Even children were sacrificed to hatred. Obi-Wan admired them for fighting back.
"That's why we saved you from Wehutti," Nield explained. "The War Council was planning to use the two of you as hostages to force the Jedi Council to back a Melida government. They hoped to force you to speak on their behalf in the Senate on Coruscant."
"Then he does not know the Jedi," Qui-Gon remarked.
A slender boy spoke up. "He doesn't know anything," he said in a joking tone. "He's a Melida."
Nield sprang forward like a shot from a blaster rifle. He wrapped two hands around the boy's neck and picked him up off the floor. The boy's feet flailed out as Nield squeezed his throat. The boy's eyes widened in a desperate plea. He let out an anguished croaking noise, trying to get air into his lungs. Nield squeezed harder.
Qui-Gon took a step forward, but at that moment Nield loosened his grip. The boy fell to the floor, gasping.
"No talk like that here," Nield said. "Ever. We are everyone. Towan, you'll sleep for three days in Drain Two for that."
The boy nodded, his hands on his throat protectively, trying to gasp in air. No one looked at him as he slinked to the back of the group and disappeared into the shadows.
"We will help you locate Tahl," Nield said, calmly returning to the conversation as though nothing had happened. "But you must help us, too."
Obi-Wan had to stop himself from crying out, Of course we will help you! It was up to his Master to do that. Never in any mission had he met a cause that seemed so just. They had been sent here to rescue Tahl, but surely if they could continue her mission as guardian of peace they should do so. It was in the galaxy's best interest to stabilize the planet. Nield was offering them a chance to do this as well as their primary mission. He waited for Qui-Gon to speak. All the faces in the vault turned expectantly to the tall, rugged Jedi Knight.
"We have spoken to the Melida," Qui-Gon said cautiously. "We have spoken to you. But we have not received a complete picture of what goes on here. I cannot promise you help until I have seen something of the Daan."
It took a moment for Qui-Gon's words to sink in. Then Nield's face flushed with anger. "You want to see something of the Daan?" he asked challengingly. "I am a Daan. Come with me. I'll show you that the Daan are no better than the Melida. And no worse."
Cerasi led the way through the tunnels again, away from the direction they had come in, straight into Daan territory.
"Cerasi knows every step of these tunnels," Nield explained as they followed behind her. His earlier anger had passed as quickly as it had come. "She was the first to come down here to live."
"Why did she leave her life above ground?" Qui-Gon asked.
"She saw the way things are, as I did," Nield answered. "There is no life for us up there. Down here we have muck and filth, but we have hope." His teeth gleamed in the darkness as he smiled. "It may seem strange to you, but we're happier here."
"It's not strange at all," Obi-Wan said.
"Was it the Young who shored up the tunnels?" Qui-Gon asked. "The work seems recent."
Nield nodded before squeezing through a small opening, then waited for them to enter the new tunnel. "We did it bit by bit, piece by piece. The tunnels were built during the Eighteenth Battle of Zehava. The Daan expanded the water and sewage tunnels and broke through into the underground burial vaults from the Tenth War, working secretly at night to enter the Melida sector. That's when the city was divided between north and south. They won that battle."
"And then the Nineteenth Battle of Zehava was fought barely six months later," Cerasi said, overhearing them. "The battles never stop. They never will, unless we act."
Cerasi paused. Light filtered down from a crack in the stone overhead. "Here."
Qui-Gon eyed the curved ceiling of the tunnel. "Where?"
Cerasi undipped a ring of tension cord from her belt. She expertly tossed the cord above and, with a flicking motion of her wrist, wrapped it around a hook embedded in the mortar of the ceiling. Cerasi tested it, then glanced at Qui-Gon and flashed him a grin. "Don't worry, it will even hold you."
&n
bsp; She scrambled up the cord, hand over hand.
When she had almost reached the top, she swung out from the cord and hooked her fingers into the crack in the stone. She remained there, pressing her face against the crack.
"All clear," she called down softly. She pushed off and swung hard, tilting her body back until she was almost upside down. Using her momentum, she kicked at the stone with her feet. It dislodged, and with her next swing, she gave it a more gentle kick to move it out of the way. Qui-Gon heard a thud as the stone hit the ground overhead. On her next swing, Cerasi easily hooked her feet into the opening, then bent her body to swing herself out.
The whole operation had taken maybe thirty seconds. Qui-Gon admired Cerasi's agility and strength.
She popped her head back down. "Nothing to it."
One by one, the remaining three pulled themselves up the cord and then swung out of the opening. They were not quite as graceful and swift as Cerasi, but they made it.
Qui-Gon found himself in a storeroom located in a service building in back of an abandoned estate. It was a clever place to hide an entrance to the tunnels.
Now Nield led the way, since he was familiar with the Daan sector. "Don't worry," he told the Jedi. "I'm a Daan, and many know me here. You're safer in Daan territory. At least the Daan don't want to take you hostage."
Now that Qui-Gon had more time, he was able to study the Daan sector more closely. It didn't seem that much different than the Inner Hub. Abandoned, bombed-out buildings. Barricades. Food shortages in the shops. And everywhere people going about their daily lives with old and ragged weapons strapped to chests, hips, and ankles. He did not see many faces younger than sixty or older than twenty.
"This used to be a beautiful city," Nield remarked, sadness in his voice. "I've seen drawings and hologram recreations. It's been completely rebuilt seven times. When I was very young, I remember trees and blossoms and even a museum that had nothing to do with the dead."
"There were no barricades for five years," Cerasi said softly. "Daans and Melidas mixed in both sectors. In some neighborhoods they even lived side by side. Then the Twenty-Fifth Battle of Zehava began."