A crystal core was a green crystal that could be installed in devices such as a Nihil Path engine hyperdrive. In 3 ABY, the smuggler Remy found a Path engine on the planet Dol'har Hyde which he later provided to Beol De'Rruyet, the owner of De'Rruyet Industries. De'Rruyet later attempted to replicate the hyperdrive and used the crystal core from the original Path engine. De'Rruyet claimed his device would revolutionize lightspeed travel, and planned to unveil it at a confluence on the planet Midarr. The rogue archaeologist Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra and the smuggler Sana Starros were sent by Lady Domina Tagge of the Tagge Corporation, a rival of De'Rruyet, to acquire De'Rruyet's hyperdrive for her.
Before the unveiling could take place, however, the Unbroken Clan, who also sought the device, broke into the De'Rruyet Center and took De'Rruyet and his employees hostage. As Starros took a number of De'Rruyet's employees to safety, Aphra tried to stall General Vukorah of the Unbroken Clan by pretending to fix the hyperdrive, though she was actually trying to deactivate it. When stormtroopers of the Galactic Empire entered the building to end the hostage situation, a firefight broke out between the Unbroken Clan and Empire. As Aphra made her escape, she noticed the crystal core and took it with her. In an attempt to make up for her failure of not acquiring the Path engine for Tagge, Aphra gave the crystal core to the Tagge Corporation, which Tagge found intriguing and offered Aphra and Starros another job to prove themselves.
As the pair made their way to their next job, Aphra revealed to Starros that she had made a copy of all the data on the crystal within her electro-tattoos, and that the core was a mess due to parts of it being corrupted, and the rest being completely useless. Aphra then added that Tagge would not be aware of those facts, and that because she gave it to her, it would keep her off her back for a bit. When Starros questioned what would happen when Tagge discovered that Aphra had played her, Aphra suggested hypothetically that someone could retrieve useful data for Tagge from the core. Starros then asked if Aphra was referring to herself, and Aphra replied how she knew.