Here is what I used to use on my old lathe setup.
It consisted of a home made drilling spindle being belt driven from a 24 volt precision Swiss DC motor. Power came from a 12 volt battery charger, and it was designed and made to do just one job, but it did such a good job, it was kept on as one of my can't live without tools.
You have to imagine a small 1/4" thick plate screwed to the bottom of the spindle and clamped into the toolpost. This would easily drill from zero up to 1/4" diameter, and was used before I had a rotary table. I indexed off the bull gear on the lathe, which I think had 60 holes spaced around it's front edge, and a scribed PCD circle on the piece for front drilling or just a setup mark for edge drilling. This kept me going for a few years, and only took a few hours to make with bits from the junk box. It still runs perfectly today.

For little jobs, you don't always need big beefy bits. Anything will do to get you out of a sticky situation.
Bogs