As the forced peace of Lake Naboo stretched on, the two halves of the assassination investigation advanced in parallel. Obi-Wan Kenobi, following the trail of the toxic dart, was in the Outer Rim worlds, searching for a planet that, according to Jedi archives, didn't exist.
On Naboo, Kaelen maintained a secure, encrypted line of communication with him.
"Kamino wasn't simply erased, Obi-Wan," Kaelen explained one afternoon, his holographic face flickering on Kenobi's comm unit. "I've analyzed the residual logs from the Jedi archives. The deletion was surgical, done from within, and designed to create a blind loop in navigational systems. Don't look for the planet, look for the gravitational anomaly. I've calculated a possible location in the Rishi Maze, beyond the Outer Rim. Sending you the coordinates."
"Your assistance is invaluable, Kaelen," Obi-Wan admitted, once again impressed by the engineer's astonishing capability. "The Force works in mysterious ways, but your data is... more precise."
"The Force can move mountains, Master Jedi. Data tells you where not to dig," Kaelen retorted before cutting the connection.
Tensions at the Villa
While Kaelen helped unravel the galactic mystery, the tension at the villa slowly simmered. Dinner had become a diplomatic battlefield.
"Politicians are useless," Anakin declared one evening, pushing food around on his plate. "They should be forced to agree."
"Forced by whom?" Padmé asked calmly.
"By someone smart. Someone who knows what's best," Anakin said, staring at her.
Kaelen set down his glass. "A benevolent dictator," he said, his tone light but with an underlying steel. "A lovely idea, as long as you're the one deciding who's 'smart' and what's 'best.' History has shown those systems tend to... derail."
"If politicians were more like Jedi, there wouldn't be problems," Anakin retorted, ignoring Kaelen and addressing only Padmé.
"Or if Jedi were more like engineers, problems would actually get solved, instead of meditated on," Kaelen murmured to himself, earning a warning glance from his wife.
Days passed. Kaelen spent most of his time in his lab, working on his "projects." Padmé handled Senate affairs remotely. And Anakin followed her, her silent, yearning shadow. In a blooming meadow, while on a picnic, he confessed his frustration, his ambition, his disdain for sand.
Kaelen observed from a distance, using an insect-sized drone to ensure their safety.
Kaelen's Observation
I listen to the drone's audio feed. "Sand? Really? It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere." This is his big romantic move. A complaint about sand. And Padmé, with her infinitely kind heart, listens, comforts him, treats him like an equal. She's being kind. Too kind.
This kid is a bottomless pit of emotional need. And he's projecting everything onto her. He sees her not as a person, but as a prize, an ideal. It's dangerous. The template in my head, the Rick part, screams at me to disintegrate him with my new prototype and dump his atoms into a black hole. But the part that loves Padmé knows that would shatter her. So I watch. And I wait.
The Breaking Point
The breaking point came a few days later. Overwhelmed by a decade of repressed emotions and the constant proximity of the woman he idolized, Anakin crossed the line. He found Padmé alone, watching the sunset from a terrace.
"You're trembling," he said.
"The sun is setting," she replied, not looking at him.
"I don't think that's why," Anakin insisted, moving closer. "You're thinking about him."
Before Padmé could react, he leaned in and kissed her. It was an awkward, desperate kiss, full of a teenager's frustration and longing, not a man's.
For an instant, Padmé was paralyzed by surprise. Then, reality hit her. She pushed Anakin away with a force that surprised him, recoiling from him as if burned.
"Anakin, no!" she exclaimed, her voice trembling with disbelief and anger. "Don't ever do that again! I'm a married woman! I love my husband!"
Anakin's face transitioned from longing to confusion, then to wounded rage. "He doesn't deserve you. He doesn't understand the Force, he doesn't understand power, he doesn't understand you!"
"You don't understand anything," she retorted, heartbroken by his betrayal. She turned and fled, leaving him alone on the terrace as darkness fell.
A Mother's Plea
She found Kaelen in the lab, calibrating a new type of personal shield on a mannequin. She walked in and closed the door, trembling.
"Padmé? What's wrong?" he asked, dropping his tools instantly.
She couldn't speak. She simply collapsed into his arms, sobbing. He held her tight, a cold, silent fury building within him. He didn't need to ask what had happened. He knew.
"It's not your fault," he whispered in her ear, gently rocking her. "He's an unstable child with power he can't control. And he just made the biggest mistake of his short life." His voice was calm, but his eyes gleamed with a promise of retribution. "I'll handle him."
But before he could, a new horror arose. That night, Anakin woke up screaming. They rushed to his room and found him drenched in cold sweat.
"My mother!" he gasped. "I feel her! She's suffering! I have to go! I've seen her in my dreams!"
Padmé, her heart filled with a compassion that overshadowed her anger, looked at him with pity.
"I have to go to Tatooine," Anakin insisted, his desperation palpable.
"Absolutely not," Kaelen said, his voice ice. "It's an emotional trap, Anakin. You're reacting to fear. It's reckless and an abandonment of your duty."
"I don't care about my duty!" Anakin screamed. "She's my mother!"
"Kaelen, he's genuinely suffering," Padmé said, turning to her husband. "We can't just leave him like this."
Kaelen looked at her, then at the pathetic, trembling Jedi. His plan to teach Anakin a lesson would have to wait. Padmé's safety came first, and she wasn't going to let Anakin go alone.
"Alright," Kaelen conceded with a frustrated sigh. "We'll go. All three of us. But we'll go my way. With my gear and my protocols. We're not walking blind into Hutt territory."
The peace of Lake Naboo was definitively broken. Now, the galaxy's most dysfunctional and volatile trio was heading to the most dangerous planet they knew, each with their own secrets, fears, and a simmering resentment that threatened to explode.