The interior of the ship on Tatooine was a silent, surreal refuge. The air conditioning hummed, a stark contrast to the chaos and screams of Geonosis that still echoed in their ears. They were gone. They were safe. But peace didn't arrive with them.
Anakin had collapsed into a seat in the corner of the cargo bay, his head in his hands. His lightsaber lay on the floor beside him, a forgotten toy. He wasn't trembling with rage, but with a deep, existential fear. What he had witnessed had shattered his conception of the universe. The power, the Force, the Jedi, the Sith... all seemed small, almost childish, compared to the cold, efficient annihilation he had just witnessed.
Padmé stood in the center of the room, arms crossed, staring at her husband. She didn't move. She just watched.
Kaelen was the first to break the silence. He set the portal gun and his other "tools" on a workbench. The metal made a dull thud that seemed to resonate throughout the ship. Slowly, he approached Padmé, stopping a few paces away. The arrogance, the commander's coldness, everything had vanished. In their place was a man who seemed to carry the weight of multiple universes on his shoulders.
"Padmé..." he began, his voice hoarse, weary. "I'm sorry."
She didn't reply immediately. Her eyes searched his, trying to find the man she had married under the heart of drones on Theed.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," he continued, and the regret in his voice was genuine. "The... the slaughter. The way I did it."
He paused, struggling to find the words to justify the unjustifiable. "They weren't going to stop. They weren't going to negotiate. Their only goal was to kill you, Anakin, and capture me. It was a problem that needed a solution, not a battle that needed a hero. I couldn't afford the luxury of an honorable duel. It had to be definitive. I had to do it."
Finally, Padmé spoke. Her voice wasn't angry, but filled with deep, painful concern.
"I know, Kaelen," she said, and she took a step toward him. "I understand why you did it. You saved us. Again." Her hand reached up and cupped his cheek. "But I saw you. I saw your eyes when... when those people turned to dust. There was nothing. No anger, no fear... just... calculation."
She was admonishing him, but not as a queen to a subject, but as a wife to a husband she feared losing. "There's a difference between using power to protect and power using you to destroy. And today, Kaelen, you crossed that line and you didn't even look back." Her eyes filled with tears. "The promise we made, of a future, of a family... it can't exist if you become that. Don't let the monster that is your 'father' win. Please, don't."
The plea in her voice struck him harder than any blaster bolt. He pulled her into a hug, burying his face in her hair, inhaling her scent as if it were the only clean air left in the galaxy.
"I won't," he whispered, his voice choked with emotion. "I'll fight. For you. Always."
The Truth Bomb
She's my anchor. Goddamn, she's more than that. She's my North Star, my true north. Without her, Rick's logic would take over everything. I'd become a survival machine, indifferent to anything but my own existence. She makes me want to be Kaelen Ror.
I look over her shoulder at Skywalker. The kid is completely broken. It's not just his mother's trauma. It's what he just saw. He's based his entire identity on being "The Chosen One," the most powerful, the future of the Jedi. And he just watched some regular dude from another universe, a simple engineer, treat a Dark Lord of the Sith like a schoolyard bully. His world has shattered. The fear in his eyes isn't just of me. It's the fear of his own insignificance.
Good. A scared Skywalker is a Skywalker less prone to doing stupid shit. Maybe.
Into the Unknown
Kaelen gently pulled away from Padmé, his composure returning, but now tempered by their conversation. He walked to the comm console.
"We can't stay here," he announced. "And we can't go back. The Citadel of Ricks knows about Naboo. Now, Dooku and Palpatine know I'm much more than a simple inventor. We're fugitives in two different wars."
"What do we do?" Padmé asked, her voice regaining its leader's firmness.
"Warn those who can still fight," Kaelen replied. He manipulated the console, encrypting a message through a series of improvised wormhole relays, making it untraceable. It was a short, direct message for the Jedi Temple.
JEDI COUNCIL. DOOKU ON GEONOSIS WITH SEPARATIST LEADERSHIP. MASSIVE DROID ARMY. IT IS A TRAP. PALPATINE IS DARTH SIDIOUS. HE CONTROLS THE SENATE AND THE REPUBLIC. DO NOT TRUST HIM. DO NOT TRUST THE CLONE ARMY. YOUR WAR IS AN ORCHESTRATED CHARADE. STAY ALIVE. -K. ROR
He sent the message. Whether they would believe it or not was no longer his problem. He had given them the truth.
He turned to his wife and to the broken Jedi in the corner.
"Done. Now, we're really leaving."
He activated his portal gun, the familiar green swirl filling the cargo bay. On the other side was no known planet. Only a landscape of strange crystalline trees and a violet sky.
"Where... where is that?" Anakin asked, looking up for the first time, his voice a trembling whisper.
"Somewhere no one, neither the Sith nor the Ricks, will think to look for us," Kaelen replied. "A small, forgotten corner of the universe I marked a long time ago. A place for us to hide, to regroup, and for me to build some things."
He looked at Padmé, and a shadow of his old smile returned. "And perhaps, for you to plant a garden."
He extended his hand, inviting them into their self-imposed exile. The next chapter of their lives wouldn't be in the halls of power or on the battlefields of the Republic. It would be in the unknown.