Джуд Уотсон - Jedi Apprentice 5 - The Defenders of the Dead

"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."

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."

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."

"What about your parents, Cerasi?" Obi-Wan asked.

Cerasi's expression was hard for Qui-Gon to read. She seemed to struggle with the decision to share even a part of her story. "Their hatred destroyed them, like so many others. My mother died while conducting a sniper raid. My brother was sent to the country to work in a munitions factory, I have not heard a word from him since."