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 ordie.'
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 boynodded, 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 stophimself 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.'
