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Serial code: R-N458-00049-T-102
Transmission Frequency: 62flm
Alignment Correspondence: abkjil48d,7ofn3[bnm!s
Alignment Correspondence: abkjil48d,7ofn3[bnm!s
*copy and paste intro here*
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*This message is being sent from The Rachel in the direction of Earth with intent for the transmission to be received, decrypted, and made available to the general public. This transmission is part of a greater series of transmissions conveying the final thoughts, wishes, and stories of everybody on board. If any transmissions were not received they are being rebroadcast at regular intervals hopefully on the same frequency as this transmission was received on (although Z-space has funny ways of trying to screw that up). This is transmission #102 originally sent at R96-TD325-F55-763 Standard Universe Time.*
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Wow, number 49. I would've never thought that I'd write 49 of these things! When Marco suggested that we send any final messages we had to say had back to Earth I never thought I'd write much at all. I knew that I wanted to explain my life and decisions to my mom as well as tell her goodbye, but that was basically it. I didn't want anyone else to see what I had written and I didn't think I'd be writing any more either. It's probably not surprising to anyone that I'm a kind of private person so I never imagined myself writing anything more. But as time passed I began to find something else I wanted to say. That's when I finally decided to send the message to Rachel's parents explaining everything and showing them how sorry I was for what happened and not stopping it. But that got my mind really stuck on Rachel and before I knew it I had written another document with a little story about something Rachel and I did one weekend. I never really meant to send it out, but after reading it over a few times I decided it would be best to finally explain what happened to Rachel's neighbors. And when I was finished with that story I wrote another and then another and it just snowballed from there.
I've actually come to enjoy writing these things down. Well, most of them anyway. I feel like it finally lets me release the feelings I've been storing up for so long, both good and bad. I can remember all the happy times I've had in my short existence back on Earth and it helps me come to terms with some of my more troubling moments. Again, I never intended to release most of them, but one day after Santorelli and Marco found them on the central storage computer they convinced me to send them back to Earth. At first I was real nervous about sending some of the stuff out because some of it was kind of personal, but I soon realized that it really didn't matter. By that point we all kinda knew that we would never be going back. There was no reason for us to go back anymore. We did what we did and now we were all looking for some closure. We didn't want anything to do with the Yeerks or the war anymore. We were either going to die trying to find Ax or, well, to tell you the truth we weren't sure what we were going to do if we managed to rescue Ax. But one thing was for sure, we really didn't want to go back to Earth. So no matter how embarrassed I felt about some of the stories I'd never have to see the public's reaction to them. And if there weren't going to be tons of questions or tons of people feeling sorry for me then I didn't have much of a problem sending these stories out after I sent the first few out. One thing lead to another and here I am at number 49.
That number still boggles my mind though. I mean, I've sent out about half of the total messages from this ship and I have nearly double the amount of messages that anyone else has. Let's see if I can remember this off the top of my head. Jake is in second place with somewhere around 25 messages sent. Marco has about 15 or so. Both Jeanne and Santorelli have no more than 5 or so each since they don't really have anyone to send them to. Menderash has only two. One is an apology to the general Andalite public for how he acted when their ship was attacked and the other was a farewell letter to his parents.
Ever since Marco and Santorelli found my messages on the central computer we all have been sharing our messages with each other after we wrote them. First and foremost it gave us something to do in this boring place, but it also began to reveal a lot of things about the other Animorphs that no one ever really knew.
It was always interesting to see what Jake wrote because how he thought was way different than the way everyone else thought he thought. We all looked up to him as the supreme leader, but in reality he hated being the one who had to make all the plans and decisions. He was always just as scared as we were and he seemed a lot more like just another one of us then our leader after reading a few of his messages. And after he explained the whole Rachel thing at the end of the war even I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for him. Needless to say I forgave for everything him not long after reading that one. I think Jake enjoyed writing all that out the most out of all of us. I can only imagine what he'd been living through over the past six years or so.
Marco on the other hand started off like everybody expected Marco would with his messages, but as time went on even he began to get more serious which was actually kind of scary. I thought he could just brush off everything bad that happened to him and go on feeling fine, but even Marco could only brush off so much. He'd been hiding some things deep inside as well and when he finally let them out it was a bit shocking. I didn't even think he wrote those messages at first. Only after Jake asked him about it did he admit to really writing them. I thought that everything going on with his parents and whatnot didn't bother him that much, but I guess when your mom's the leader of your enemy it's a lot harder to brush that aside then I thought.
And who knows what everyone else thinks about me! They probably think I'm crazy or something for doing everything that I've admitted to doing. They all knew next to nothing about me before we boarded this ship, but now I think that they finally get me. Well, as good as anyone can really get me I guess. And I guess I understand them more as well. Sharing these final stories between other people who know what you've been through really helps you all connect with one another more than I ever thought would be possible.
But I'm getting WAY off topic here. This message is supposed to be about me and something that happened in my life that I think is interesting enough to tell the entire world about. From the moment I began writing stories down I've wanted to write this one, but I always thought it was just too personal to share. And besides the other Animorphs already knew about it so I didn't see much of a reason to share it with everyone else. But as time went on and I searched for more things to write about (there really isn't much to do on this ship) I finally decided to give it a go. By this point I think I've at least mentioned things that are just as personal as the content of this story in my other messages. It just doesn't strike me as too personal to hide from everyone anymore really.
I've kept this secret hidden from the public ever since the war ended, but I think it's finally time to let it go. I have kids of my own. Well, kids in a sense anyway. But they didn't come from Rachel obviously or else everyone would've known about them by now. They came from my mating partner, a female red-tailed hawk. This is their story.