Justus Lynn

[boxcartenant]

The first thing Justus noticed when he left Monterrey was that his ship lacked artificial gravity. It was not uncommon for light fighters to be without gravity, but he hadn't prepared his supplies for it, and they were floating in the cargo bay. This meant that he could not engage his cruise engines, or the acceleration would force everything in the cargo bay to the back, and his cargo might be damaged. Justus put the Boxcartenant on auto pilot at a slow speed, and floated to the back of the ship so he could strap everything down. While he was working on it, he took advantage of the opportunity to examine the contents of his living space and cargo more carefully.

The ship was mostly empty, save the television with a few ancient shows on analog media, the supplies he bought at Monterrey, and his other basic necessities. After a significant time looking through his things, he resolved that there were no clues to be found which might tell him about his past, and gave up looking. He took a canned beverage from his food supplies and brought it to the cockpit with him.

Drinking pressurized beverages in zero gravity was not an easy thing to do, but Justus prided himself on his ability to catch the flying drops without making a mess. He carefully opened the can and aimed the top towards his open mouth, but his grip on the can was just slightly too loose, and the can rocketed down to the foot-space of the cockpit, where it spun and sprayed liquid in every direction. He tried to minimize the mess by stepping on the can and then accelerating the ship quickly, to force the liquid to the back, but it only made the mess worse.

Justus grabbed some napkins from the cargo bay and then came back up front to wipe down the cockpit, and while he was stooped down with his head below the dash, he saw a piece of string hanging from the edge of one of the panels. The string didn't look like it was a component of his Stargazer, so he pulled on it, to see if it was attached to anything. With a light tug on the string, a panel on the underside of the dash came loose, and a small box drifted out of it. The box appeared to be made from an expensive assortment of materials; It was primarily tarnished silver with carefully cut amethyst adorning corners. It had gold and copper plate on the lid, with the writing, "Un malheur ne vient jamais seul" etched onto it in an elegant cursive.

The box contained: a simple dagger, with a sharp edge, a cloth grip, and no meaningful markings; a dead laser pistol battery with burn marks on the leads; a small grappling electromagnet, such as one might use to assail a ship when your own is no longer viable; an old book, written in french, titled "La Bible Du Semeur"; a fragment of orange cloth with the letter A adjacent to a torn edge; and a vial containing a black powder which Justus could not identify, warm to the touch, with a blood stain on the lid.

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Kill a whale; save a giant squid.