They were getting dangerously close to when Cressida had said the thrusters would burn out and frankly Paul had started to feel each second as though it were a grain of sand in a hourglass, he hadn't seen the Rush girl for some hours and couldn't take staring at the monitors on the bridge any longer, he had to go find her. She'd already shut off life support to just about all of the ship so there were very few places she could have been, sure enough after five minutes Davis found Cress hunched over a large water barrel filling it with the water the Destiny crew had collected from random planets. He just stood there in the door way with folded arms and a puzzled look on his face for a few moments.
"Bit thirsty?" He asked gently but she didn't look up.
"I need water to make a bomb." Davis raised an eyebrow at the mater-of-fact way she spoke and moved further into the room.
"Bomb?! I thought you said yesterday we couldn't build a bomb."
"What you said before about packing up our things and leaving on the shuttle gave me an idea. We might not have explosives on board but I can make the chemicals for one, well, a poor man's excuse for one."
"You're using water to make a bomb?" He asked himself more than the ebony haired teenager, he shook his head with a half-smile. "I'm glad you're on our side because I think we'd all be dead by now if you weren't."
"Ahh, making Sodium is easy." She said as though it were like making a cup of tea. "It's the time involved, once I'm done here I'll shut everything down except the bridge, you're going to have to put a space suit on."
Cress turned off the tap and picked the huge barrel of water up, or at least she tried to, it was much to heavy for her and Paul instantly leapt into action and grabbed it for her like the perfect gentleman he was. She called out Vulpine's name causing him to stand up and follow along behind them as they headed down the hallways.
"Air is going off too then I take it."
"Yep, air too I'm afraid. We need every Watt of power we can get."
"Okay, never worn a space suit before, maybe I'll do my Neil Armstrong impersonation." He grinned in jest.
"If it's anything like your jokes, please don't. I don't think I could take that."
"Spoilsport." The two huffed out a laugh. "There is one thing I don't understand-"
"One thing?" Cressida interrupted with a smile.
"How did you make Sodium on a practically deserted ancient ship?"
"Easy!" She beamed. "Marble mixed with baking soda gives you Sodium Carbonate mixed with left over Calcium Hydroxide gives you Lye, and Lye mixed with Aluminium gives you Sodium. Submerge the Sodium in water and you get what I like to call a badass explosion!" Remind me never to piss this girl off, announced Paul's mind quickly. "It won't create a huge explosion with enough force to break us free but it will trigger the moonshine from Brody's stash and then the shuttle, instead of one big bang I'm going for three little ones."
"Easy huh?"
"Well that is the really basic version but yeah."
"You're going to blow up the only shuttle?"
"I have to, it's the only explosion I can make that is big enough to stand a chance of breaking us free of the blackhole. The thrusters won't hold out much longer."
Paul wasn't stupid, he could see she was struggling under the weight of the situation. She tickled Vulpine's head.
"I don't remember reading anything about a dog suit, what are you going to do with Vulpine?" He asked as they turned a corner. "Stasis?"
"Can't, we don't know if it can support his species and I really don't have time to find out." Cressida sighed. "However, I have an idea-"
"Always do, you're good like that."
"- I'm going to put him in an airlock. I can pump it full of air and it's secure."
"Won't that still be using power?" The barrel had started to grow heavy in his arms and he hoped they were almost wherever she was going.
"No. Once the air is in I can cut the power without a problem, coaxing him in is going to be the hard part though. Vulpine knows when I lie to him."
XXXX
An hour later and Paul had put on his suit and Cress had locked a reluctant Vulpine up in the airlock, Paul couldn't deny that Destiny was awfully eerie without any lights on and the sound of himself breathing only added to the atmosphere.
"Moment of truth." She told him once she'd joined him on the bridge after rigging the shuttle to explode.
Cressida's voice was slightly muffled through the radio in his helmet and he could hardly see her thanks to the bulky suit. She was scared and honestly so was he, this was literally the only chance they had, if it went wrong they were dead; hell if it went right they might still have been dead. Paul took her hand in his which was rather hard with them both in the space suits but he managed.
"Disaster, do you think there's a Heaven?" Asked the teenager through the radio.
Davis paused at that, he'd never been asked anything like that before and it threw him for a moment.
"... I really don't know, but I think if anyone deserves to get in it's you." The Colonel squeezed her hand comfortingly.
With a deep breath Cressida pushed a single button on the main control terminal as they stared out the large window into unexplored space and released the the shuttle. The seconds ticked by like hours as he headed for the blackhole, heart beats raced, palms sweated.
"Now!" Cried the teenager, Paul slammed his hand down on the other console.
The moonshine blew then the larger Sodium bomb and finally the shuttle itself, the wave of destruction pushed Destiny as far as it could but wasn't enough.
"Kill thrusters."
Paul was quick to obey and shut down the practically dead thrusters while Cress brought the main engines online, they hardly moved for a moment or two and then finally, finally, Destiny gained some distance. In a last desperate attempt to escape the blackhole's gravity Cress used what little power they had left to engage the FTL drive.
"Is this working?" Asked Paul loudly, eyes flashing through the large window as though he'd see something useful.
"No, no, I don't think-"
Suddenly Destiny launched forwards and shot off at full speed.
Paul Davis had just survived his second backhole.