CouchLord's Character

#1 is a great idea, but it would be such a noteworthy item that condrij from around the world would have been hired to hunt you down; I don't think that level of notoriety fits into this campaign at this point...but it might find its way into the campaign...!

#3 is nearly an impossibility; virtually all advanced technology is either relics of the Earth colonies (which have gene locks making them usable by humans only), tech derived from such relics (attempts to imitate the magic of the ancients), or artifacts of other, even more ancient alien civilizations. The bronth have never had any industrial base to develop or manufacture advanced technology, and Burdoth has kept the secrets of Earth-tec a fairly closely-guarded secret (the widespread use of Earth-tec in the Burdothian military is a development of the last thirty years or so, and those items all have gene-locks). So your character is familiar with how to operate Earth-tec, but that's mostly from observing his human platoon mates in action. Any experience he has with using Earth-tec himself (if any) was obtained by using illegal black market modified Earth-tec with the gene-locks circumvented somehow. Possession of such items in Burdoth is punishable by death.

So...of these, #2 makes the most sense. A cork is a bit like a seed, and a bit like a battery for an incupod: put one in an incupod, and if the incupod is healthy, the cork and incupod will combine and start to grow, changing into the device/function specified by the cork. This cork was probably designed by an Earth colonist - perhaps a junior team member in an engineering lab who ended up getting stuck with clean-up jobs - who needed a way to collect small bits of metal shavings or something. The cork turned out much stronger than intended, and the resulting reco would actually yank ferrous metal items out of people's grasps within a 10' radius. It became a great party trick and way to prank pompous engineers. Eventually, the colony administration reprimanded the engineer who'd created it, and the corks and their patterns were shelved. Thousands of years later, a pack of them was found in a cryo-bin, and Iscins experimenting with the corks discovered that they were valuable in finding and collecting iron ore and rusting artifacts in archaeological digs. Enterprising Iscins with friends in low places realized another potential for the corks, and sold a few to duelists and others who might want to disarm an opponent to give an advantage in combat. Your character probably found one of these corks on the person of a criminal you apprehended.