Mos Espa hadn't changed. It was still a hive of scum, villainy, and suffocating heat. Their first stop was Watto's shop. The old Toydarian, now limping a bit more, recognized Anakin instantly, but his surprise was overshadowed by his greed.
"Little Ani!" he buzzed, his wings flapping. "You turned into a Jedi! Come to buy your mother? Price has gone up!"
The negotiation was short and bitter. Watto had sold Shmi Skywalker years ago to a moisture farmer named Cliegg Lars. "A good man," he grudgingly admitted.
While Anakin and Padmé gathered the information, Kaelen wasn't idle. His gaze swept over the cluttered mess of Watto's shop, not with nostalgia, but with the eye of a hungry vulture. He saw a broken hyperdrive compressor, a pile of burned-out droid servomotors, a salvaged speeder power generator. To Watto, it was junk. To Kaelen, it was an arsenal waiting to be assembled.
"Hey, wings," Kaelen said, interrupting Watto. "How much for this pile of garbage?"
Watto glared at him disdainfully. "Fifty credits. And it's a gift."
"I'll give you ten," Kaelen retorted.
"Thirty!"
"Fifteen," Kaelen said, holding up the credits. "Or I walk and leave you with the moody Jedi."
Watto grumbled and snatched the credits. Kaelen, with a smug smile, gathered his "treasures" and carried them back to the ship, while the other two headed for the Lars homestead. "I'll catch up," he told them. "I need to prepare some... contingencies."
Contingencies on Tatooine
The moisture farm was a grim, desolate place. There they met Cliegg Lars, a gruff but good-hearted man who had lost a leg, his son Owen, and Owen's girlfriend Beru. The news they received was devastating. Shmi had been kidnapped a month ago by a band of Tusken Raiders, the savage sand people. Cliegg and a party of farmers had tried to rescue her, but they were massacred. They gave Shmi up for dead.
Anakin refused to accept it. He could feel her. She was alive, but suffering terribly. Despite Owen's warnings, he took one of the farm's speeder bikes and sped into the desert, following the faint Force trail towards the Tusken camp.
Padmé stayed at the farm, her heart filled with anguish for Anakin and his mother. It was then that Kaelen arrived, his speeder bike laden with strange, angular contraptions that were definitely not standard Naboo issue.
He saw Padmé's expression and knew instantly what had happened.
"He's gone after them, hasn't he?" he asked. She just nodded.
Kaelen sighed and unloaded his gear. He didn't say "I told you so." Instead, he set to work in the farm's small garage, the light of the twin suns falling upon him.
Owen Lars watched him suspiciously from the doorway. "What the hell are you building?"
Kaelen held up one of his creations. He had taken the broken hyperdrive compressor and wired it to the speeder's power generator. A tangle of wires and coils connected it to a crude stock fashioned from droid parts. The "rifle's" barrel shimmered with contained energy.
"I call it the 'Sonic Concussion Wave Cannon,'" Kaelen explained, like a kid showing off his new toy. "It doesn't fire a projectile. It fires a concentrated hypersonic sound wave that can pulverize rocks or, theoretically, turn a Tusken Raider's internal organs into soup. It can also be set to non-lethal and just knock everything out in a twenty-meter radius. It's versatile."
Beside him, he had modified an old protocol droid, gutting its interior and filling it with an improvised personal shield generator. "And this is 'Snack.' Named because its job is to draw enemy fire. It can project a particle shield that'll stop blaster rifle shots for about... thirty seconds before spectacularly overloading."
Kaelen's Precognition
This place is hell, but the scrap is top-notch. It's liberating. No NIAS resources, no polished alloys and sterile labs. Just me, my brain, and a pile of broken shit. It's the essence of Rick. Creating wonders from garbage.
I look at Owen. His face is a mix of awe and fear. He's used to blasters and old slugthrowers. He's never seen real science, let alone multiversal-level garage science.
I'm not doing this to impress anyone. I'm doing it because the gut feeling in my stomach is worse than ever. Anakin is about to do something stupid and violent. And when the Tuskens realize they've pissed off an unstable demigod, they'll come here looking for revenge. And I'll be ready.
The Descent
Night fell over the desert. Kaelen was on the farm's perimeter, setting up small motion sensors he'd built from the droid servomotors. Padmé joined him, bringing him a glass of water.
"You should have seen him, Kaelen," she said quietly. "The rage in his eyes. I've never seen him like that."
"He's a Skywalker," Kaelen replied, adjusting a sensor. "I've been told they're quite temperamental. And they have a history of losing limbs and turning evil." He added the last part under his breath.
"This is no joke."
"I know," he said, his tone turning serious. He stood up and looked at her. "But panic won't help us. Preparation will. Padmé, when he comes back... whatever happens out there... he won't be the same. We need to be ready."
At that moment, in the distance, they heard the hum of an approaching speeder bike. It was Anakin. And he wasn't alone. In his arms, he carried his mother's lifeless body, wrapped in cloth.
He landed in the garage. His face was a mask of grief and a fury so profound it seemed to have consumed him entirely. He carried his mother inside, and the door closed behind them.
Padmé rushed towards the door, but Kaelen stopped her. "Give him a minute," he whispered. "You don't want to see this."
From inside, they heard a scream. It wasn't a cry of pain. It was a roar of pure rage, an animalistic sound that made the air vibrate. And then, a terrifying silence.
When Anakin finally emerged, his eyes were no longer those of a Jedi. They were yellow, bloodshot with hatred.
"I killed them," he said, his voice a hollow, terrible whisper. "I killed them all. Not just the men. But the women... and the children too. They're animals, and I slaughtered them like animals!"
Padmé hugged him, horrified but filled with compassion for his pain. Kaelen watched them, and the Concussion Wave Cannon on his back suddenly felt very, very necessary.
Anakin's first step into the Dark Side hadn't been a seduction. It had been a leap from a cliff. And they had been there to watch him fall.