It was surprisingly simple to captchalogue as they ran through the caves. Not enough time to move all the way down to the deep storage, but deep enough they could gather more food, and water. A few other things here and there, but priority number one was to get out of the caves, to the ship, and get into space.

They managed to grab the last bit of supplies from the caves before moving up through the winding caverns. They had to make it into the ship before dawn, at least they knew that no one would be attacking when the sun was up, but they didn't know about when it started to go down.

They hurried on board the ship, Karkat performed one last headcount, and they slammed the doors. Sollux rushed to the control panel and started pressing buttons and pulling switches faster than the others could watch his hands move. Equius, without being asked, immediately opened the hatch in the control deck floor to check the engine, his verdict being "Not the best, but at least it won't explode and kill us all, and I think I can fix it on the move." He decaptchalogued a toolbox and started checking through it. "Yes, I have everything I need. We should get a head start, I can work on it then."

"AG, thlide over to the pilot'th theat. I'm going to do an electrical check, you do the thyth check." Vriska slid over to the seat next to Sollux, and she started to press buttons.

"Systems are warming up, it'll take them a moment, apparently we didn't rattle enough dust off this thing. Hey, it's got radar."

"Ith it operational?"

"Don't know yet, it's booting. All of you better find a seat, once this baby is warmed up we're outta here." Vriska added the last bit while waving her hand at the collection of seats on the walls beside them.

"This thing wwasn't set up for twelve trolls. There are five seats."

"Seven of us are sitting then, find a lap and hope that the straps will hold the both of you," Vriska replied.

Equius scooped up Nepeta immediately. Eridan moved towards Feferi, but her glare sent him skittering to the other side of the row of seats. Kanaya sat in Aradia's lap, wincing and struggling to find a position in which Aradia's metal leg didn't dig painfully into her. Karkat looked awkwardly at Gamzee, who shuffled his feet.

"Everyone." Sollux's voice was low. "All of you are doubling up. Get over yourthelveth and jutht find a lap and hold on. We're at fifty perthent and the electrical thythtem is stable. AG?"

"Radar's up if you want to check it out. Waiting for the final bits of a lot of things. I'll let you know when the engines are good to warm up."

"Doeth anyone have the time?"

"It's about four, two hours until dawn," Kanaya said quickly.

Tavros sighed and extended his arms. "Eridan, come here."

Eridan sat down in Tavros' lap, shifting uncomfortably. "Thanks."

"Please don't talk to me right now, this is awkward enough."

Terezi grabbed Feferi's hand and pulled her over. "Rock-paper-scissors for who sits on who?"

Feferi nodded and moved her hand to play. They counted to three, and both drew their respective choice. "Looks like I'm sitting on you," Feferi said.

"I don't see how you've won, so it looks like I'm on your lap, Miss Elderberry Fizz." Terezi cracked a grin.

Feferi shook her head, a small smile on her lips before sitting and pulling Terezi to her. "Fine, fine. I'm probably heavier than you anyway - more muscle." Both of them shuffled for a moment before locking in the restraints.

Gamzee sighed, grabbing onto Karkat's forearm. "Let's go." He sat down, Karkat sitting on him as gingerly as if Gamzee was a glass statue. He tried not to shift around, and refused to look Gamzee in the eye.

The body contact was uncomfortable, but not as bad as it could have been. Karkat was small and warm, and as unlike Gamzee's tormentors as it was possible for a troll to be. Gamzee rested a hand on Karkat's hair and murmured "I'm okay, bro." He tensed and breathed a little faster as the safety restraints wrapped around them both, but he could handle it, it was only for a short time. And Karkat was there.

Sollux looked back. "Everyone okay, and buckled in?" He looked around. "Theems like it. Engineth have tharted to warm up. AG, can you handle the retht of the protheth?"

"I got it." Vriska started pulling at a lever and they could hear the engine spring to life, slowly at first, then louder as the seconds wore on.

"We've got thome thmall thhipth in the upper atmosphere. I think they are drone thhipth. Let me thee if I can dithengage them before we take off."

Everyone held their breath, listening to the beeps and clicks as Sollux worked. Gamzee watched, mentally thanking the Messiahs that he hadn't actually ended up having to fly a ship solo. He should have known the simple controls in movies were hoofbeastshit.

"Everything is loaded - we ready to go, Sollux?"

"Yeah, yeah, we thhouldn't have any resistance, good to go on my end."

Vriska barely nodded, before grabbing onto another lever. She pressed a few buttons and readied her hands on another set. "Everyone hold on, this clunker is going to shake up a storm." All but the two piloting the ship tensed, grabbing on to their seats or the troll they were sitting on. "Here we go."

There was force as the ship pulled forward, not very fast yet, but the speed was quickly increasing.

"We're at two hundred," Sollux said quickly. "At four hundred I'll charge the thruthterth."

"Hopefully this old son of a bitch speeds up enough before the cliffs."

"If not, I'm a pthionic, we'll manage. Getting near two-fifty now." Pressure was pushing every troll back in their chair. The front part of the ship was starting to tilt upwards. Vriska was uttering a steady stream of curses and words under her breath. "Three-ten."

"That cliff is getting awfully close."

"Hold your pothition, AG." Vriska nodded, her body pressing back and her hand yanking back on the lever like it might make the ship go faster than it already was. The engine was roaring through the ship, sounding violent and angry; the ship wasn't shaking yet, but the sudden increase of speed made it impossible to move any of their limbs without a lot of effort.

Vriska moved her arm and the others could see the ability it took to move towards any of the buttons. "Where are we, Sollux?"

"Three-eighty, if you preth that button too thoon it'th going to be a challenge to get into orbit. Hold your courth, I'll tell you when to preth it."

"We're going to go off that cliff vertically. Hopefully we can engage the thrusters and use the angle to help," Vriska said quickly, before cursing again.

"We have time before it hitth. Three-nine-five, get ready."

If any of the other trolls watching could have turned their heads they would have seen the approaching cliff. Instead, they were too busy trying to right their sense of balance and keep from breaking anything as they slammed and pressed into each other.

"Four hundred, engage the first thruthter." Vriska pressed a button, and the ship jumped forward and pulled off the ground, nearly vertical in a matter of seconds as it shot higher into the air. "In three, two, one, engage the thecond." Another lurch forward and everyone pressed back as the pilot's window was covered in fire

The ship shook and groaned as it passed through the atmosphere. The pressure mixed with the shaking was enough to make any of the trolls feel like a carbonated drink, shaken up and waiting to explode. The roar of the exit was nearly deafening on top of the noise from the engine.

"We aligned?" Vriska's voice was strained over the roar. She was shouting as loud as she possibly could.

"We're ready!" Sollux was shouting just as loudly. The shaking started to slow, and along with the fire whipping around them it slowed and all that was left was the blackness of space. The ship sounded like it was popping, or that could have just been their ears getting accustomed to the new altitude. "Everything'th thtill working."

"The clunker made it. You all can unbuckle now, the main turbulence is over. If any of you feel sick, find something other than the ground to vomit on."

"Okay, how far can we get with the supplies we have?" Karkat said, shaking a little as he unbuckled him and Gamzee. The rest of the trolls followed suit shortly there after, all of them standing with a little shake.

"It's about... Wwell, this is just a guess-"

"Okay, no. Let's get a handle on our full situation, before any of us run off to do any other projects." Karkat paused. "Actually, Equius, start looking at the mechanics, Sollux, do something similar but whatever the fuck your version's called. Vriska, figure out our navigation and the exact place we're going. The rest of us, go through the ship, top to bottom, make a list of everything we have. Also write what's in your sylladex. You have one hour, I'll be around to get status reports, if you need more time tell me. This work for everyone?" The group nodded. "Also, if anyone can figure out how to look where the fleet actually is, that would be awesome."

"I'm on it, KK, I'll thee if I can calculate our lead and maybe buy uth more time."

The trolls slowly moved to do their respective jobs, most sitting with pen and paper, writing down what was in their sylladex first. Karkat sighed, basics first; ship navigation and threat proximity. Then he could worry about the rest of the supplies.

There was a squeak, and Karkat noticed Tavros was still hugging Tinkerbull. He sighed; great, an extra mouth to feed. Still, if worst came to worst the one problem could fix the other... He shook his head as he watched the little bull nuzzle Nepeta's hand as Tavros held it out, and decided that would be the last resort. Having a lusus on board was clearly helping morale, and he didn't want to lose that. He sighed and moved over to the hatch where Equius had started to work.

"You looked at this before we left?" Karkat's voice was still terse, but he was making an effort to at least sound polite.

"Barely, I did not have the time to extract all the required information." There was a pause as Equius decaptchalogued a notepad and pencil and started scribbling. "I'm afraid this engine's efficiency is terrible. There's no way we can outpace a good Alternian flyer, even with a head start, but even if we could, sooner or later we'll run out of fuel. If we want to make any reasonable amount of speed or distance we really need a psionic helmsman in a proper rig-"

"No," Karkat said firmly, raising a hand. "You already did enough damage with your bullshit about serving in your place, I am not having my best friend wired into a ship forever. Especially some crappy junker that should have probably been scrapped sweeps ago. I'm glad it's here, but if my best friend is becoming the Helmsman of any ship it's going to be a good one at least. That's not why we brought him, he came along to escape that!"

"No, no! I wasn't suggesting that for a minute!" Equius looked at the engine again. "I was about to say, if I rewire this a bit, I think - don't quote me on this, but I think - I can set up a detachable helmsman wiring system."

Everyone heard him, and paused what they were doing in surprise.

"What?" Sollux blinked. "That'th impothible."

"I highly doubt it's impossible, lowb- Captor. It's just that nobody's ever bothered to try. Or at least nobody with our skills."

"'Our' skills, not 'your' skills? Huh." Vriska smirked.

"Well, yes. I'm not a psionic." Equius brushed his hair behind his ears and scribbled faster. "Okay, this will be... difficult at best, and I must warn you, Captor, it will probably hurt. But it's perfectly possible and you won't be in it forever."

"What's the downside?" Karkat asked.

"Uh, well, I'm going to have to improvise a bit, the equipment isn't marvellous, and there's no way to test it safely before putting it into practice. If it goes wrong, Captor risks brain damage."

Karkat looked at Sollux, who thought for a moment, then nodded. "Either I rithk brain damage, or we all thtarve to death or get caught. I'm willing to try it." He stood up and looked at Equius' notebook. "... Oh my god, you're right!"

"The cable array would just be in a helmet. Of course that cuts the amount of power but I don't think we have to tools to create a functioning removable array. There is also the issue of capturing the power. I was thinking we can go with a set of goggles that you would focus the energy to."

"It would need thome type of boothter."

"I was thinking something like..." Equius scribbled into the notebook, Sollux nodding beside him. "... this?"

"It would jutht continually thycle the charge, and I'd keep plugging at the initial puthh?"

"That's what I was thinking, though getting that initial charge would be difficult. It would leave you tired."

"We can work around that. Ath long ath that'th a known ithue we can prep for it. How are we looking at thtorage?"

"I'm a bit stuck on that at present, but I was thinking continual cable loops. Since you'll be recharging it, we shouldn't run into any entropy problems."

"There would be a big loth ratio, which might outweigh itth uthe. We can work on that though, over time we have to thee if a cableloop would even work to hold a pthionic charge... But we can do thith! I've never theen anything like- wait." He looked at Karkat, then at Gamzee, then back at Equius. "KK, am I thtill thuppothed to be mad at thith guy?"

"Gamzee and I still am, but you don't have to be. I'd recommend you don't stay mad if you working with him will both save all our lives and give us an excuse not to have to talk to him."

Equius expressed with a scowl what most people would have expressed with an extended middle finger.