You always did love a big show. 

I saw the ECHO feeds today. A right mess going on. Looks like your fellow residents have not been wasting much time. You know I have to come for you, right? You know I have to hope?

That pocketwatch you gave me hasn’t worked since that night. But I still read the words on it. I still remember why you gave me it. I haven’t always listened, but it seems like right now I need to listen to those words more. 

I broke the news to the crew today. Filled them in on the short version of the last two years. Felt good to let some of that go. Feels like we’ve seen enough already together that I can hope I won’t get suffocated by a balloon animal in my face. The team even picked up a few crew members so we could get this ship on the move. With Zoe doing some magic on the inner workings of this bucket, we might actually be able to make this thing useful! 

We’re coming, don’t you worry. I’m sure you’ll make it easy, too, right? I will make it my personal mission to ensure you are safe again. Even if I have to toss you in a padded cell myself. Penny, you have no idea how hard it was for me to do that to you two years ago. You put up a fight, something fierce. But I couldn’t let you go. I had to hope. There had to be a way.

And now we come to this. Me, racing to stop you from murdering half a city, all the while smuggling slag knows what. What am I doing?

You remember the Karsson Krew in Lynchwood? You know how they used to just run cargo from planet to planet, but we could never figure out how? I just walked into a bar today, said I wanted to move some stuff, and they just GAVE IT TO ME? Something about it being “low priority”, and then we were loading it into the cargo hold, and that was super easy! No lawman waiting to stop us before taking off, nobody inspecting the cargo… it was like…

Awww, slag it! I’m going to have to go look in those things, aren’t I?

**SOUNDS OF CURSING AND SLAMMING OF SOMETHING AGAINST A WALL**

Image credits:

• Cover image: Handsome Jack – Pocket watch by Catherine Bonneau-Morin (Sourced from: https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/024/598/827/large/catherine-bonneau-morin-88012820-216380303087652-1906043504564371456-n.jpg?1582922138)