Jasra went in search of Kira. She found her in the med bay, with the Disciple tending over her.

“Is Kira… alright?” Jasra asked him.

She eyed Kira with suspicion, wondering how she would react. She sure had been furious when Jasra had attempted to get at the tracer button set in Kira’s hairband. If it hadn’t been for Togo’s stunning blasts, Jasra felt Kira might even have killed her.

Kira sat up when Jasra entered the med bay, brushing Disciple away softly.
"I'll be fine." she said. Her eyes, which had now fully returned to their normal color, reflected the shame she felt. "He...he took the shard, didn't he?" she asked.
When Jasra answered with a warry nod, Kira sighed. "Look...I'm sorry for what happened back there." the Exile refused to meet Jasra's eyes, and instead chose to stare at the med bay wall, "The shard...I just...it took over me. I couldn't control what I was doing. The only thought on my mind was keeping that shard. The power..." her voice drifted off to nothing, her mind rerunning the scene of her attacking Jasra, and her eyes dropped to the floor, her cheeks tinging slightly red.

The Doctor jumped, then backed away from her. *Tegan, Nyssa. Would you give us a moment?*
They looked at each other curiously, then left the TARDIS.
THe Doctor looked at Crystal. *Crystal, I am going to ask you a question, I need you to on hundred percent honest with me.*

Crystal stared at him in confusion. "Of course, Doctor. Ask away."

*Are you,* he began. *Or are you not... a enforcment officer sent by the Time Lords. You changed your appearence when your body was in danger. That's a trick of Gallifreyan's only. My TARDIS has been diabled. This cannot be a coincidence.*

"It is an unintentional similarity," Crystal told him after a long silence. "I... I grabbed that crystal that Kira was having trouble with and... well, it seems to have... changed me."

*Then you are not a Time Lady sent by the Time Lord council to return me to Gallifrey?*

Crystal smiled. "No, I'm not. Just a slightly different telepath... and it rather feels like there might be other things I can do now, but I couldn't be sure unless I tried and I don't exactly want to experiment in any enclosed places for fear of destroying them."

The Doctor looked at her warily for another moment, then seemed to relax. *I'm sorry, Crystal. But one can never be to careful when the Time Lords are concerned,* he said. *Now, where is Jasra? Is she alright?*

"She's fine," Crystal reassured. "I found her just in time. We had a brief tussle with our former stowaway, but managed to get away alright. Jasra's back with us now."

*Alright, we need to get of Taris before it attacks again,* he said, heading for the door. *I'm not in the mood to go through another regeneration at the moment.* He left the TARDIS, heading for the medical bay to check on Kira - and to find out what Jasr'a employer wanted with her. He saw Jasra standing outside the medical bay, and walked up to her.
*What happened?*

”What happened?” asked the Doctor.

“Well…” Jasra paused, looking nervously at the door to the med bay. “First of all, Togo, my employer,” she added with obvious embarrassment, “is a droid. And he’s tasked Kira to find these crystal shards.” She frowned. “Gayat crystal shards,” she continued. “Part of something he called the ‘Key to the Galaxy’. He had one of them there. Kind of a pale gold colour? Very weird. He wants her to find the other four shards and bring them to him to destroy. Then he gave the shard he had to her to hold. Said that she was the only one who could sense where the other shards were and that she needed to ‘tune’ herself to it. But…” she shifted uncomfortably, and lowered her voice. “The shard…it did something to her. Changed her. Made her…well, selfish, power hungry, and dominating. It was sort of scary.” Jasra bit her inner lip. “And he said that now that she had felt the power of the crystal, her desire to possess the other shards would be irresistible. And then he….”

She suddenly forgot what she was going to say next. She knew it was important, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think what it was. “Nevermind. You get the picture, right?”

"I hope everyone's here now," Atton's voice shouted through the inter-hold comm., "Because we're leaving. Now."
Sure enough, before Kira had time to brace herself, the Hawk rocked as the engines whinned and the landing gears groaned. They were airborne, and Atton gunned it a moment after, causing the Exile to flip off the table. Well, she would have, if Disciple hadn't been right there.
"Oof!"
The two Jedi landed in an undignified heap on the ground, Kira laying atop the Disciple.
"Sorry." she muttered, standing.
"Uh, no problem." Disciple said, standing as well. He rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't know that bulkheads were so...hard.

Brax caught them just in time, he'd gotten into his ship at jsut the right moment, and saw the Hawk lifting off. He quickly caught up tot hem. He wouldn't be able to get close enought o ride their hyperspace window this time, but he prepeed a tracker for right before they entere hyperspace.

Seconds after the rapid takeoff knocked everyone about, Crystal went floating (yes, floating... as in, like there's no gravity) into the cockpit and sat down next to Atton.

"I understand the desire for a quick takeoff," she told him wryly, "but I doubt most of the others were able to adapt to it as I have."


((Remember, she looks and sounds differently now. :) ))

"Yeah, well--" Atton did a double take, "Who the hell are you??" I swear, if we have ANOTHER person on this ship...

"Settle down," Crystal said soothingly. "It's Crystal... something wierd happened, so I don't look at all like you remember, but it's me."

"Would the weird thing that happened to you be related in anyway to what happened to Kira?" the pilot asked, still a bit wary. She didn't look a thing like Crystal.

"We touched the same crystal, if that's what you mean," Crystal answered thoughtfully. "Though it seems to have had a worse effect on her than on me... true, the effect it had on me is far more... visible... but I think I'm more or less the same mentally, and mentally is how it seems to have changed Kira."

"Changed?" Atton asked, his face darkening, "What do you mean 'changed'? Is she alright?"

Inside the inner sanctum of Sig’s cantina (or had it always been really Togo’s cantina) Togo extended a long metal arm and retrieved the golden crystal shard from the floor. He had calculated the probablity that he might have to disable the Exile to get the crystal shard back, but he had not calculated that there would be another that wanted it as badly. He had successfully repelled the female intruder, stunning her with his shock arm before ejecting her from the room, however, her appearance added new factors to the equation. The small flap opened up in his chassis and the mechanised arm deposited the crystal securely inside.

Next, Togo rose through the hole in the ceiling to the upper level of the cantina, then eventually the cantina’s roof. The small transceiver tilted towards the salvager’s sector and the landing bays. Linking into the primitive flight control tower’s computers, he scanned the upper atmosphere. And he found what he was looking for.

He adjusted his transmitter to the correct frequency, then spoke.

“I am most disappointed at the state of my facility, Brax. Particularly since you were unsuccessful in obtaining your quarry. However, I believe I still might be able to offer you some assistance in your task in exchange for your services. According to my calculations, the probability that Revan will remain close to the Exile is extremely high. I have given Jasra Lantill one of my ‘special’ implants and instructed her to keep close to the Exile. The implant would allow you to hear and see what Jasra Lantill does, giving you unlimited access to the inner workings of the Ebon Hawk without being seen. I will give you the frequency, if you agree to track the Exile and report her progress to me.”

"I don't know," Crystal admitted. "Last time I saw her, she was unconscious. Before that, I sensed incredible amounts of greed and anger being projected from her... not at all the woman I met when I first came aboard."

That didn't rest well with Atton. "So you're saying something happened to her when she touched this...crystal?"
At that moment, a proximity alarm went off. "What the--?"
He switched the viewscreen to each the starboard, bow, hull, and port cameras. "Oh not him again." he mummured as he spotted a ship behind him, "Don't tell me that's our stowaway again."

"Quite likely," Crystal said thoughtfully. "He doesn't seem likely to give up."

"You're telling me." Atton murmured. He activate the ship's comm. again, "Hang on to your hats everyone!"
He set coordinates into the grid, firing up the hyperdrive. "Time for some random jumping."

Jasra rubbed her forehead. Bulkhead floors were indeed hard. She was just making her way to the cockpit to chastise Atton about his extreme flying, when she saw Crystal sitting in the navigator’s chair. She paused.

She couldn’t get a grip on Crystal’s new appearance, never mind the fact that Crystal had ‘floated’ past her just a few moments before. Jasra was grateful that Crystal had saved her from the alien, but she was still in disbelief with all that had happened in the last hour. She decided it best to go to the dormitory and get some well-needed rest.

She sat down on the bed. Sig. Togo. Kira. Brax. Crystal. Master Kelva. She tried to calm the raw emotions that so desperately wanted to surface.

Seeing Sig again, the squalor that she had once endured… The crude comments, and leering looks….

And how could she have been so naпve? Working for a droid? A droid!...

And the look in Kira’s eyes when she was holding that shard, and the things she had said…

Jasra shivered.

Then there was Brax, the blue shredder. He had been right about one thing. She had been foolish to try and hold him there on her own. And greedy to learn his Dark secrets…

And Crystal…

Jasra bit her lip. Stop it, she told herself. You’re supposed to be tough.

Crystal had saved her, no doubt. But if Brax hadn’t viewed them as a mere annoyance, the outcome could have been rather different. She had froze when Crystal had suddenly appeared, looking remarkably similar to Master Kelva.

A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye.

Froze when she should have attacked. The very same thing she had done that had distracted Kelva.

She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

And got her killed.

She buried her head in the pillow and began to sob uncontrollably and very un-Jedi like.

((Forget this post, please. It make no sense.))

((OOC: Er...she's gone now, Doc :xp: ))

IC:

Kira left the medical bay, followed by Disciple, and nodded to the Doctor as she proceeded to the cockpit.
"So, where are we headed?" she asked, Atton, glancing at the blue light that had currently filled the viewscreen.
"Manaan, for now. I had to make a random jump; our little friend was still taging along. I dunno about you, but I'm getting really tired of our 'stowaway'."
"Hmm," Kira said in affermation, then glanced to the person sitting in the co-pilot seat before returning her gaze to the entrancing, shimmering blue. She did a double take.
"C-Crystal??" she asked in surprise, "Is that you?"

Crystal laughed. "Y'know, Kira, you're the first person to actually recognize me without being told who I am."

She nodded. "Yes, it's me."

As Crystal turned to face her, Kira noticed the smallest trace of gold around her iris...and had remembered what her eyes looked like when she stole a glance at herself in a mirror while on the exam table.
"You...you touched the shard, didn't you?"

Crystal's smile faded and she nodded. "More than touched it... had my hand fully wrapped around the dsaby thing..."

She stood. "It changed us in different ways, though. My change was purely physical while yours seemed to be mental." She fell silent for a moment before asking, "How do you feel now?"

"I feel...exhausted." Kira replied, "But normal." Whatever 'normal' means. she thought, crossing her arms and leaning against Atton's headrest.

The Scoundrel listened intently to the two's conversation, but refrained from saying anything. He could tell that Kira didn't want to talk by the way her voice sounded. For the moment, he resolved himself to ask Crystal after the Exile had left.

"Well you were shot with five stun blasts," Crystal offered helpfully. "That's enough to exhaust anyone. Perhaps you'd best get some rest. We can talk more later."

"How long until we reach Manaan?" Kira asked Atton.
"Not for about half an hour." he said, "And Crystal's right. You've more than enough time to rest."
"Alright, alright," Kira said, a tired smile coming to her lips, "Before all you mother hens start pecking me, I'll be in the dormitory." she said, and left.

"Exactly what happened back at the cantina?" Atton asked Crystal, after making sure Kira was out of ear shot, "And what is this crystal thing?"

The Exile peered at her reflection in the mirror, taking several minutes to study her eyes and make sure that the gold was gone. It was the shard that had done that to her, she was positive. She sighed after a few moments, and stood, taking the band from her hair, the weight of the Doctor's tracer lying heavily in her hand, and again sending her back to earlier that day. She remembered how Jasra had lunged at her. She knew now that the bounty huntress was just trying to activate the tracer's signal, but Kira had seen it as an attempt to take the shard from her...and she had attacked Jasra.
The Exile shook her head, banishing the memories. She continued to undress, taking her cloak off, then her outer robes, before lying down on her bunk, and pulling the covers over her head.
Stop the galaxy, she thought, I want to get off.

"Kira and Jasra went in," Crystal answered. "Jasra's droid employer came out and showed a shard of something called the 'Key to the Galaxy' to them."

She sighed. "I suppose now's as good a time as any to explain what little I know about it. The Key is powerful enough to regulate the harmonics of all the galaxy's life. Jasra's employer wants Kira to find the other four pieces, as the Key will not work separated. Joined, it has the potential of being very dangerous."

She shrugged. "Anyway, as I know it, Kira took the shard and it, for lack of a better word, changed her. She was consumed by greed and insisted on keeping the shard. In the end, she failed and I think we're all better off for it."

"Kira and Jasra were forced out of the room and I ran in," she went on. "I'm still not sure why, but, I grabbed the shard. Then, I got hit from behind with what I can only assume was a stun beam. I woke up back in the TARDIS, Kira was unconscious, and Jasra was missing. So I ran off to look for Jasra and got there looking like this."

She leaned back in the chair. "Quite a lot of excitement, don't you think?"

The Doctor stepped into the cockpit. *I hear we're on course for Manann?* he said. *Excellent. I allways loved that planet - never had to worry about the Master there, or a Dalek invasion.*

"More excitement than usual, that's for sure." Atton said, leaning back just as Crystal had done, putting his feet up on the dash. "Come to think of it," he said, a small yawn escaping his lips, "I'm pretty beat too."
"Oh, yeah," Crystal began jokingly, "I'm sure that waiting in the TARDIS all that time took a lot out of you."
"Well yeah, having to listen to the Doc and watch his two...none-too-bad looking assitants run around for an hour or so gets pretty tiring, you know?"
Atton had just closed his eyes...when...
"I hear we're on course for Manann?" the Doctor said, coming into the cockpit. "Excellent. I allways loved that planet - never had to worry about the Master there, or a Dalek invasion."
Atton's eyes opened at once, and he sighed. "Manaan. Yeah. Great place. Uh-huh."

Crystal made a face at the mention of Manaan, but said nothing.

*Is that a note of sarcasim I hear, mr. Rand?* said the Doctor, smiling. *And stop yawning. You have no reason to be tired. All you did was sit in the TARDIS the whole time.*

"Well, making sure that the Hawk doesn't crash and burn, plus having to add up all those numbers when I was playing pazzak with Disciple and Tegan--"

*Yes, sitting and counting can both be quiet demanding at times, can't they?* responded the Doctor. *Crystal, I was wondering... Jasra mentioned something about a 'Key to the Galaxy'. What do you know of their conversation with this 'Togo'?*

"Very little," Crystal answered thoughtfully. "Togo has a shard of the Key and wants Kira to find the rest... I got that just from reading their minds. Past that, I really don't know what they spoke of."

*Yes, that's what Jasra told me...* he said. *Well, perhaps I will speak with Kira when she returns. I'll let her rest for now - she needs it.*

"Well, there was little I could do to spare your facility Togo," he didn't sound like he cared one way or the other. "You know that killing Revan is my only goal." At about this time Atton was spotting him on the Hawk's radar. So, Brax launched the probe, it shot through space and latched onto the ship. "I would have had him if it wasn't for that ... Doctor character. I have no idea what he is, but he's not a human. I killed him, and he's back now."

But it didn't matter wether his tracer had hit or not, since he could track Jasra directly. "Up until I kill Revan, we have a deal ... after that, I'll probably keep up the deal. I kind of like that errand girl of yours. She has potential, her emotions are very clear ... with some training she would make a very good Zedai."

Brax set a course for Manaan, and closed his eyes, letting his droid finish the jump to Hyperspace. "I'll keep you informed Togo."

Revan sat in the gunner station of the Ebon Hawk. He watched as the small, sleek ship pursued them, and he could sense the beast on board it. He reached out with the Force, trying to learn more about it. All he felt was a powerful hatred and rage directed towards him. He grabbed hold of the wall just in time as the lurched into hyperspace. Judging by the sudden shift, instead of the smooth transition, he knew that the pilot had set a random jump. He stared into the depths of the hyperspace corridor. It was impossible to tell where they were going. He closed his eyes, ket the Jedi code flow through him, and entered deep meditation.

*No, Kira must rest,* said the Doctor. *But perhaps Jasra may be able to answer some of my questions. Computer, lo-* he stopped himself. *I don't suppose you've installed that, have you? Oh, I'll just look for her,* he said, leaving the cockpit.

Jasra had had a good cry in the solitude of the dorm. She was thankful that no one had seen her. She got up, dried her eyes, and went to check herself in the mirror.

She sighed. She looked rough. And she didn’t feel right. She hadn’t touched the crystal, but…

Her left hand went to feel her right upper arm. It was sore. She wasn’t quite sure, but she didn’t think that the ache was caused from her brief battle with Brax, but she couldn't think of how else she would have gotten injured there. She shook her head and sighed again. Suppose it didn’t matter much.

She smoothed her shoulder-length dark hair as best she could, straightened her tunic, and washed her face. Ready to find out what plans had been made for Manaan, she headed out into the main hold.

The Doctor met Jasra part way between the cockpit and the dormitory.
*Ah, Jasra, I was won- are you alright?*

She sniffed, then let out a breath. "Yes. Fine. Is there something you needed, Doctor?"

*Yes, as a matter of fact, there is,* he said. *I need you to tell me all you can about this 'Key to the Galaxy'. I have heard of something similar, and if this is what I think it is, then we are all in grave danger...*

"Alright..." Atton yawned again, "Looks like I won't get much rest here. You alright keeping track of stuff up here?" he asked Crystal. Hardly waiting for a response, he stood and left the cockpit. He continued through the coridors into the dormitory where Kira was already asleep. As he spotted her, he stopped in the doorway and...just watched her. She was peacful, for the most part. Though everyonce in a while she would shiver or her face would screw up, as if having a nightmare.
His sleep forgotten, the Scoundrel was content to simply sit on the ground next to her bunk, and watch the Exile sleep.

~*~*~

The Key to the Galaxy? the Disciple wondered as he cleaned the med bay and took stock of his medical supplies, Why haven't I ever heard of it before? After all my years studying the galaxy...
Having finished his job, the blonde haired Jedi leaned back against the wall, staring into space. After a moment, his knees buckled, and he slid to a sitting position on the floor.
I hope this Shard hasn't harm her permanently...