As we approached the last day before launch I decided to fake an illness. My plan was to have my second in command take care of this launch. He had completed nearly as many launches as I. I've been training him up since the second flight through the rift, and he was more than ready.
I was planning to stow away on the craft. Although it wasn't huge, it could hold a crew of five and had storage for various equipment and supplies. My plan was to hide in there with their gear.
First I had to figure out a way to buckle myself in, since it was storage and not designed for a human traveler. Fortunately we had some spare cargo straps on board the space station. I was able to hide one of them on board during one of my last pre-flight inspection to ensure no one would find them.
Since the crew would have to sit in the ship for about 4 hours prior to launch I had to make sure I got in there unseen a few hours before that.
So while the majority of the station crew was on their night cycle I snuck on board and set up my seat belt. Based on the data I had analyzed years ago, this was going to be a bumpy and strange ride.
