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 dogged, 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."