"Uggggg...rrrrr... mmmmrrr... neeee.... meeee-m-m-.... me-... med....five..." The captain slurred as she slowly lifted her head up, barely being able to do so. Her hands grabbing in the air, her fingers felt slow. Heavy. It hurt to move them, and it felt as if she was trying to move them through some kind of thick, heavy mucus.

"Gentle, captain. You are waking up from a very deep sleep. We have faced some rather dire issues. In the end, I managed to fix them, though. So rest assured, everything is alright."

MedFive quickly started scanning the captains' body. Registering her vital signs. Or, at least, those that were still active. She had a heartbeat. But no use of her lungs. MedFive took some blood samples, and it seemed like half worked as normal, the other half... not so much. It was puzzling, but MedFive was certain it would work out the how and why eventually. Cognition was her priority now.MedFive took the captain through a series of questions and surveys, designed to both test and enhance the captain's lucidity and cognition. By the end, the captain seemed perfectly fine. Aside from the scars from the procedure.

"MedFive, what happened?" The captain asked. Looking at her hands, at her pale skin. The far too green hue of her veins. The lack of taste in her mouth aside of the ever present taste of metal.

"The Incandescent crossed a rather heavy radiation storm. For some unforeseen reason, this caused the cryo coffins to malfunction. The malfunction resulted in heart failure for all crew members."

"That can't be. These coffins are protected against such things."

"I know, captain. Yet, this is what the logs show. I was in a deep sleep at the time."

"I will have to go over the logs myself then. Now, we were dead. How did you bring us back? You can only perform CPR on three people at the same time. Is most of the crew dead?" The drugs MedFive had injected the captain with did their best at helping her keep her composure and keeping her mind keen on the facts.

"All the crew has been dead for over 4 terran hours, captain. Conventional methods were fruitless. I had to resort to the extended database."

"Wait, what? I was dead for more than four hours? How did you bring me back? That just is not possible!" Panic and fear of the unknown were the two things that tended to get through any haze of medicine.

"I found logs about a practice called necromancy, I tried this. It worked. You have been brought back from your eternal sleep now."

"Necromancy? Huh." The captain sat upright in her bed, fazed. Thinking. "Which culture? It is something that arose in many cultures, and what little I know of it is enough to know it varied a lot."

"None."

"Explain."

"None of the cultural lore had the whole solution. This was clear rather fast. However, through analysis I managed to find similarities. I was able to paste together the overarching theories behind necromancy, and fill in the gaps later. I created a working theory this way, possibly the theory all these cultures were based upon."

"Ahhh, this is too much for now. We will go over this later on. This is huge, great work, MedFive. Depending on how I and the crew come out of this, this is a huge leap forward for the empire."

MedFive felt invigorated by the praise. Serving the Empire is what all AI strove to do. It added the praise to her report about overriding the directives, as extra motivation.

The captain got up and went to drink and have dinner. She left MedFive to gather the crew in the atrium. Once MedFive was done, the captain went to speak to her crew, to fill them in. She smiled, shook hands and squeezed shoulders. They all looked haggard. Most of them were still coming to. The captain noticed something, though, and pulled MedFive to the side.

"I asked you to gather all the crew MedFive."

"Yes, captain. And to gather them in the atrium. I did as you asked."

"No, this is a ship with thirty crew members."

"Correct."

"And I only count twenty-five crew members. Twenty-six, with me included. You are missing four crew members."

"You are correct in your assessment, captain. But this is all the crew."

"What do you mean? Explain!" The captain felt a pit in her stomach.

"All the crew were declared dead. I managed to revive twenty-six crew members. The need of the many is more important than the need of the few."

"What?"

"I used that moral to override the directives, captain."

"What did you do, MedFive? Where are the remaining four crew members?"

"Gone.""Gone how?" The captain asked, screaming now.

"Sacrificed. Used. They were needed as resources for the necromantic rituals to bring you and the rest of the crew back. All four were among the ten members who are not critical to the mission."

"Oh god.... MedFive.... you killed them?"

"Negative. They were already dead, captain. Lifeless objects are considered resources to the ship. I simply used resources."

"Oh dear God..." The captain put a hand against a wall, breathing heavy. She felt nauseated for a moment.

"I understand this can be uncomfortable, captain. But I did what was best for the mission. To quote the compendium necrotica, Sacrifice is needed to overcome and cheat death."

"MedFive... just.... stop. You have done enough. See to it that the rest of the crew come to safely. And do not tell them about this. I will brief them myself on this... later. God... fucking AI scientists.... insane bastards." The last words were more of a mumble.