binary stars (a.s)

chapter four

Eola wished she didn't recognize the ghost in the shattered mirror. Though it watched her with keen beryl eyes, moved as she moved, went where she went, all without saying a word, the sight dug a familiar piece of shrapnel all too close to Eola's heart.

She stared it down, through the shards of glass still sticking to the wall. Her fists stung with their new cuts and wounds, but she embraced the feeling. It helped her focus. And focus, with a ghost haunting her, was something she couldn't afford to lose.

"Twelve," Eola whispered between clenched teeth. "Eleven."

The ghost in the mirror raised an eyebrow.

A ragged exhale left Eola's lips. "Ten. Nine. Eight."

Phantom voices from another time, another life, flitted in the back of Eola's mind. They darted behind flowing curtains, their footsteps echoing through grand halls and senate rooms.

"Seven, six, five."

Eola shut her eyes, blocking out the image before her. A brush of a warm hand against her cheek, snatched away by a cold wind and plumes of smoke.

"Four, three, two--"

"Vex."

Eola's eyes snapped open, finding one another in the mirror. The ghost had gone for the time being, but someone else had taken its place in the ignited holoprojector settled in the main room behind her.

Initiative slid into place as Eola spun around and headed towards it, a blaster ready to fire at the will of the silver-bearded man rendered into light.

Eola sank into a kneel, her head bowed. "Yes, master?"

"Have I interrupted your penchant for vanity?" Darth Tyranus drawled, his voice dripping with lethal sarcasm.

Eola bristled, but didn't let it show. She glanced up at the hologram, brooding at her from beneath his heavy cloak, and smirked. "You're one to talk of vanity, master," she said airily. "What with your dramatics and all."

Darth Tyranus didn't move, didn't so much as bat an obscured eye. "Rise," he said flatly, and Eola obeyed. "I trust the capital knows of your presence there."

The image of Anakin Skywalker's brooding face floated to the forefront of Eola's mind and she resisted the urge to snort. That was an understatement. "They know," she said. "Have I succeeded in this plan of yours?"

"The plan has yet to begin," Darth Tyranus rebuffed. "And you would do well to understand that, apprentice of mine." He paused, as if gathering himself. "The Republic will continue to fray beneath the strain of the Clone Wars. It is your job, Commander, to ensure that the Jedi do not interfere with the outcome."

Again, Anakin's face flitted across Eola's mind and stayed there, brighter this time. A distraction.

"When have I balked from a plan?" Eola asked. "Give me your command, master, and it will be done."

"Fine," Darth Tyranus said, the closest to amused that Eola had ever heard. "Your mission to infiltrate the Jedi Temple stands. Earn their trust--or their suspicion--and cast it out against themselves. Without their righteous defenders, the Republic will cease to exist."

A foreign sensation slithered its way around Eola's soul. Something that felt suspiciously like doubt, apprehension, or fear. Anakin's visage turned to dust in her mind, swept away by the tide of her nerves, until that of a bounty hunter strengthened it tenfold.

"--I will expect a report by the end of the week. Find your way into the Temple or--"

"Forgive me, master," Eola interjected. "But we had a deal. I will uphold my end of it, but--what is being done to ensure my safety?"

"Safety?" Darth Tyranus huffed a laugh. "What do you have to fear? I've made you one of the most feared individuals in the galaxy."

"And yet," Eola said, a flare of annoyance twitching in her mind, "I find myself in danger."

Her master went still, though not from concern or fear. Darth Tyranus never felt such things, could never be made to feel them. No, this stillness was one of controlled thought and calculated wrath, weighing the merit of her words and piecing them into the puzzle that existed in no one else's mind but his own.

"You have nothing to fear from a bounty hunter. Now fulfill your mission or endure the consequences."

Eola's chamber went dark, filled now only by the glow of Coruscant's atmosphere beyond her orbiting starship. Now alone, she took a deep breath in and out, settling her nerves. She'd do the job she always did, and revel in the payout once more. But it was not her own life she feared losing, never her own.

Like a haunting melody stuck in her head, a voice long gone reached out to her and Eola turned towards the shattered mirror once more, beholding the visage of her ghost once more, on this, the anniversary of her death.

One.