Chapter 5

I raised an eyebrow at the old woman.

"The Dark ones?" I asked

She nodded.

"They enslave us, they take our young and work them in the mines, they are building something in the south, they have been since the beginning, this story has been passed down through the years, they came from the void." She said.

I frowned.

"the void?" I asked, still not clear on the matter.

She nodded.

"you know the space between." she said.

I shook my head.

"Never heard of it." I said frowning.

She looked confused.

"The stories say you would know, that you would come to help us!" she said, her voice taking on a panicked tone.

I held up my hands.

"Whoa, We did come to help, we just where uninformed, Perhaps you could enlighten me?" I said trying to reassure her.

She nodded, pulling out a worn book, I recognized what looked like a log book from a colonization ship, it was badly burned and worn, she started flipping through its pages.

"Our ancestors got trapped in the void, they encountered the darkness, they thought they got away, but they had unknowingly brought a part of the darkness with them. They found home but it wasn't home, so they came here, they built here, but the darkness was here too, Unknown to them, when it was strong again it came back." She said handing me the book.

"I see." I said looking through the book.

I found that it was mostly destroyed, I couldn't make out any of the original data, what she had told me had been written on the last page, I looked closely at the last page, I saw a set of longitude and latitude coordinates, I needed to contact my ship, I flipped the book over looking at the front page, it said it was from the Colony ship Intrepid, the launch date was 2110, long after we had been sent on this mission.

"What the hell" I said, I looked at her.

"How long has this been going on?" I asked.

She looked at me and thought, she pulled out a scroll, handing it to me, I un-scrolled it, it said the recording of cycles since the fall, looking it over I saw over 2000 lines marked.

"this scroll is passed down through the elders, each one is responsible for recording the cycles since the fall, we are to give this to the rescuers when they arrive, then we are to escort you to the holy place. It is hidden from the Dark ones." She said.

"The holy place? Where is it?" I said, it must be where the signal originates from.

"Its deep underground, you have to take the tunnels to it, I am too old, but my granddaughter has been trained to take you, ever since the dark ones get her mother she has been learning from me." She said.

"Your granddaughter? Where is she?" I asked.

She smiled at me.

"You have already met her, you saved her from the dark ones." she said.

I nodded, the young girl I had rescued from the spider.

"Jacob? Ja ... can yo ... hear m... ?" The voice seemed to come from far away, I looked around.

"Did you hear that?" I asked the old women.

"Jacob ... I don't know if this is work ... or not ... I have hac ... d into the Gole ... ommand unit..." I held up my hand for the old women to be silent, I had to focus on the sound, it was Janus.

"Jaco... , there is ... problem ... The ship is fine ... I ... I don't kno ... how to say this ... Please be hearing me ... Jacob the radia ... shielding on the stas ... room failed ... The nuk ... Crew dead or dying ... few left alive ... your body ... succumb... 72 hours at most ... Jacob ... lov ... ou..."

I sat down slowly, that didn't sound good at all, I looked to the old woman who was staring at me expectantly, I didn't have much time, I had to help these people, perhaps if I could locate the signal I could get a message to Janus, I looked up at the old woman.

"We have to hurry" I said, she smiled at me.