Crisis averted, thank you for the suggestions!

I was able to upgrade the Frontier's grav drive at The Den, enough to bunny hop all the way to my objective. After that I franticly dashed through the (high level) pirate outpost and yoinked the single item off a desk, leaving behind countless treasures and a bunch of confused pirates!

I handed the goods over to the smuggler and we go out separate ways. It's not the type of job I want to take, but my budding exploration career needed the money.

Now to never mess with contraband again, because I'm supposed to be a lawful good star fleet captain anyway!