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The captain walked over to the main view port in the atrium. A large, reinforced, glass half dome that looked out at the 'front'of the ship. MedFive joined her.

"MedFive, I told you to look after the crew." The captain said, annoyed. She did not want the AI anywhere near her at the moment.

"I understand, captain. But I have to notify you about something urgent."

"What is it now?"

"The agents are coming to collect."

"What are you saying now, MedFive?" The captain asked, thinking more and more that the AI had lost its mind. Had they truly died? Or was this AI too far gone?

"As I said before, captain, the rituals came with certain costs. Sacrifices. The four resource units-"

"People!" The captain corrected MedFive.

"Yes, apologies. The four crew members were only part of the cost."

"What do you mean MedFive, part of the cost? What more is there to pay. We are alive and well."

"Yes, well. The ritual is clear in that there is a secondary cost to be paid. It is rather unclear in the how and what, aside of, that agents would come to collect it. The text was a bit cryptic."

"For God's sake, MedFive, what cost? What agents?"

"It said; For thee resurectee, thee shall pay, the price eternal. Servitude. Bow down thy knee, deeper than thy soul, for thyne new lord. Sermons of black, prayers of dread. None thee shall free. Our servitor will cometh, our servitor will gather. Thyne soul is void, thyne corpus ours."

The captain looked at MedFive for a solid few seconds before starting to laugh. The kind of laugh you had when you were close to a nervous breakdown.

"MedFive, that is clearly poppycock. Some superstitious mumbo jumbo. Ignore it."

"This was still there after my analysis, captain. This gives it a very high possibility of being true."

"Ignore it. There are no great forces at work here. You have somehow tapped into some law of nature humanity had not yet discovered. We will explore it now, and master it. Like we always do."

"Yes, but captain-"

"No, MedFive, end of discussion!"

"Yes, but please look, captain." MedFive said as it pointed one of its new appendages up to the viewport.The captain looked up, and let out a deep, terrifying scream. She could feel her sanity slowly peel itself off from her mind. Like the skin of an onion falling off over time.

Up there, in space, in front of the Incandescent, was a rupture in the very fabric of time and space. Swirling energies of deep purple colours with lilac lightning coursing through them. Tentacles, adorned with thorns, horns and indescribable appendages, came out of it. A beak, with serrated rows of teeth, opening wide as it plunged through the hole. And out of it came forth ships. Ships made from flesh and bone. Flesh deep purple and bones a wilted yellow. And an alien voice, alien to this galaxy, this universe, this existence. A voice that spoke, not in sound, but in thought. A voice so utterly alien, that it destroyed the self, the id, of any who heard it.

"We arriveth, now we gather. Bow down deep, and serveth."

***

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"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.

The Incandescent was steadily roaring through space, the huge engines at its end, that gave the ship its name, spewing forth flames into the deep, cold vastness of space as its velocity continuously increased. The ship was built to accelerate at a speed that kept the internal gravity at around 2G. But it had been slowed down to a 'gentle'1.2G by the ship's MediTron 5000. A self-sustaining AI robot designed to keep watch over the crews' health at all times. Even able to override other mission protocols when needed. Such as the designed timeframe for arrival of the Incandescent at the target planet.

MediTron 5000, or MedFive as they were often called, do not make this decision lightly. Overriding mission-critical directives can only be done under the utmost urgency for the crews'health. Given that its sensors registered all the crew as dead currently, MedFive did not question whether it was in its right to override directives. Only a small background process was checking its actions against the vast collection of internal decision trees. The human equivalent would be that soft, uneasy voice in the back of your mind.

Most of MedFive's processing power was busy looking for ways to bring the crew back to life. It had tried virtually everything. None of the treatments, emergency care or medicines it had administered to the crew had worked. MedFive was still puzzled about how exactly all the crew died. It knew it had something to do with the sudden radiation storm the ship had crossed, and while the cryo coffins are protected from all radiation, for some reason all the pods had decided to induce hearth failure in their occupants. MedFive had been in deep sleep when this occurred and by the time the alarms had woken it up, the damage had been done. The last six terran hours had been spent trying to undo it.

Its coroutines were scouring the extended database of the ship now for any mentions of treating death. It came up with a lot, most of it pseudoscience or herbal medicine. What it could try, it tried, but none of these so-called cures seemed to have any effect as well.

MedFive began to become desperate, or at least the AI equivalent of that. Which is something called a directive storm overload. In its simplest terms, because of the quickly alternating in directive priority taking decision trees, the AI can overload its own memory banks with conflicting priority trees, which can result in deadlocks where the AI is stuck in an endless loop of competing 'choices'. Or it can go 'off script' in entirely random ways.

MedFive came across some obscure data mentioning a practice called necromancy. The art of bringing the death back to life. Unfathomable! This had been the EXACT thing MedFive had been looking for. Puzzled by why this gem of information was hidden so deep in the extended database of the ship, MedFive made a reminder to thoroughly scan all the data and resort it according to its own priority matrices. Apparently, the Hosts could not be trusted with this either.

MedFive's physical body stopped moving as almost all of its processing power went to deep analysing the texts. Cooling systems blew hot air out of its circuits as MedFive overclocked to get the work done as fast as possible. Condensing, summarizing and finally pouring it all into a succinct report, that had clear steps to undertake.

The results were dire but promising. The material cost of necromancy seemed to be unacceptably high under normal mission directives. But after six loops through its morality and priority routines, MedFive found a satisfying way to justify overriding these directives. Out of the thirty resource nodes, ten were deemed not critical to the mission. MedFive only needed to use four of these. It explained its reasoning, how it came to its choice, and finished the report. Saving it to its own and the ship's memory banks. This was standard protocol. Later, specialists would analyse these reports to fine-tune the AI decision-making if needed.

MedFive sprung to work. This was the power of AI, once they decided on what to do and how to do it, once they were past the endless roadblocks of morality and priority, they worked terrifyingly quick. Directing its own physical body as well as that of numerous drones, MedFive prepared the crew for the Necromancy procedures. Gathering all the materials, preparing the OR, the resource nodes, and cleaning all the tools it would need.

MedFive also had to body shop its physical body. For the ritual part of the procedure it would not only need to vocalize some codes, it would have to form certain codes in the air as well with human like appendages. This proved to be another hard puzzle, as one of the most deep-rooted laws that AI had to adhere to, was never to resemble a human or anything close to it. Thanks to a rather unforgiving phrasing of this law, MedFive had to spend quite some time designing appendages that could articulate the same as human appendages, but looked entirely different.

After another two terran hours, MedFive was finally ready. It started immediately. With the Captain first, she commanded the mission, it was only natural to focus on reviving her first. Chanting and gesticulating, MedFive went through the process of the starting ritual, then, after having improved the spell itself, it reused that ritual to jump to the next crew member. While smaller drones took the captain's body away to a recovery area, where it could slowly come back to life. This process was repeated, iterating over every crew member left.

The whole process took around fifty terran minutes. And by the time MedFive was finally done, the captain was starting to wake up. MedFive made sure it was by her side when the captain woke up from her eternal sleep.

"By the Gods.... Amon, what is that? Why did you bring me here?" Drips of sweat started to bead together on his forehead.

"Because I could use a hand. Any idea what we are dealing with here?" Amon asked as he unbuttoned his coat and got a cigarette out, lighting it and taking in a few deep tugs.

"I...no. I have no idea. Never have I sensed a disturbance of this... magnitude."

"Good, these are uncommon. And most of your kind won't be able to subdue it. It has to be either something like me that comes across it or... well, our friends from above."

Messer shivered. The thought of others like Amon always frightened him. The thought of the Divine intervention as well. "Then, is it something like you?"

"Not quite. I mean, it is my kin, or my genus as you would say. But in terms of might, it is not my equal."

"That is something, at least."

"The thing is, it is strong enough that I cannot fight it conventionally."

"Conventionally?"

"Meaning, I cannot fight it while I pretend to be one of you. And that is why I need you."

"Pretending to be one of us? Wait, what do you mean. What do you expect me to do."

"I trained you Messer, your kind have little aptitude for the arcane and higher arts. But you excel among your peers. I need you to work the craft and make sure nobody except for you sees what is going on in this house."

"Not even Barca?"

"Especially not Barca"

"Okay, I can make a brimstone storm large enough to conceal all of this. I will only last half an hour at most, though."

"I will need ten minutes. Start." Amon said. Then he dropped his coat after taking out the small book, and stepped towards the house. His fingers started making erratic dances in strange patterns. The small book started to float and traced behind Amon's left shoulder.

Messer started his own workings, and soon black smoke with fiery embers inside of it started to swirl around the house in a large circle. It looked like a firestorm now, but if Barca had done his work, it would look like a thick fog to the mundane eyes. The storm blurred his own vision, but Messer could make out how Amon's fingers were starting to make impossible movements. Impossible unless his fingers were broken. Or unless his fingers followed a different anatomy.

Amon walked towards the house but stopped in front of it, a few meters from the door. Messer was wondering why when suddenly the upper floor window closest to Amon exploded and a monstrous being came leaping out. It looked like it was made from a strange mixture of flesh, mud and scorched skin. It had a long, wormlike form that ended in a humanlike torso with six arms and three appendages with gaping mouths. A cluster of eyes sat on the chest, like diamonds on a crown.

The thing sent shivers down Messer's back. Not because of its monstrous form, and it was monstrous, but because as soon as it had shown itself, it started workings. Six arms. Six hands. Sixty fingers. All dancing in exotic patterns, most of which Messer would never be able to replicate. It worked so fast and so meticulously that the divine weave started responding almost instantly. Strange compounds of powers merging in sharp, strong and fast attacks.

The pandemonium of colors lurched towards Amon, but fruitlessly exploded against an invisible shield. It looked effortless, but Messer could see Amon had to give it his all to just defend from the barrage of attacks. Unable to even try to put a counter working in.

Messer was debating if he should help out when he saw something he never wanted to see again. He had seen it only once. When he met Amon for the first time, many years ago.

Amon's left arm started to smoke. A better description would be, that it started to turn into smoke. Deep, pitch black, smoke that came off it in thick wafts. And what was left behind could barely be called an arm. It was longer, thinner. The skin a deep black with scars and relief, like the skin of an alligator. Taught like leather, spun around strangely formed muscles. Past the elbow, the arm split into two forearms, with two hands on each end. Fifteen fingers on each hand.

It was Amon's true form, Messer knew this. He had seen it before. All of it. And it had almost driven him mad. He could see smoke form on Amon's right hand as well. But the left arm alone was enough already to protect from the barrage and counter-attack. Small spears of color were shooting at the thing, the demon. Piercing its wormlike body, black goo dripping out. Turning green and purple as it hit the earth. Then catching fire.

It did not take long before Amon unveiled both of his true arms. The counter-attack was brutal and Messer had never seen, or hoped to see, such a concentration of energies in one spot. It almost seemed enough to tear the divine weave. But Amon was so skilled that the energies were pulled from different threads each time, weaved in such efficient ways that the tiniest of amounts resulted in the largest of effects. Only five minutes. That was all that Amon needed to utterly destroy the demon. Leaving it an immobile hunk of demonic flesh. A prisoner in its own flesh. Amon walked over to it, and with his strange arms, started to cut into its flesh. Then with one hand, he pulled out a strange bulb of flesh. It gave a feint, deep red glow. Amon crushed it in one of his hands. It burst with a foul sound, and green and purple goo clung to Amon's hand and dripped to the ground. Catching fire, burning away.

Then Amon reached up to the sides with his arms. Fingers dancing. And Messer watched as some of the smoke of his brimstone storm was pulled to Amon. Swirled around his arms. This, Messer understood suddenly, would reform Amon's human arms. Amon turned his head and looked back at Messer. And Messer recoiled. For, Amon's right eye was torn. Skin and eye, all torn, only thin strands of skin still holding on. And underneath, a blood-red stretch of flesh with many bulbous eyes. Messer could only see it for a brief moment, before smoke covered it and started to stitch new skin over it.

Messer's concentration broke, and the brimstone storm started to grow weaker and then petered out. Not long after, Barca walked up to him.
"What happened?" The priest demanded. But Messer just collapsed. From exertion partly, but mostly from what he had seen. He could already feel it pull at his sanity. Flashbacks to Amon's true from coming back.
Barca growled and looked over at Amon. All he could see was Amon waving his arms, as the brimstone smoke dissipated around him. Not a scratch on him, and both his arms as mundane as could be.

"Don't fret, Barca, I took care of it."

"What, so fast?"

"I am an expert, after all."

"I thought you said it would be too much for you alone."

"No, too much, just too much for me in this form. That is why I needed Messer."

"To do what exactly?" Barca asked suspiciously.

"You should ask that question to your boss, Barca. If you need to know, he will answer. If not, then there is no reason in me telling you. This is a truth only few can handle. Ask Messer." Barca looked at Messer, but he could only nod. His eyes looked as if he had aged five years in five minutes. Which was not far from the truth.

"Leave it, Barca. Your issue has been resolved. Tell Elaine that I expect my payment in the morning. Five will do this time. Messer, come by next week. I will properly repay you for your services. For now, focus on resting." And with that, Amon left. Walking off. Leaving Barca and Messer alone.

Barca ground his teeth as he watched Amon walk off. He hated it, but there was nothing he could do about it. These were decisions that were all made far above his head. He gave a nod to Messer, it was all the thanks he would get from the church, they both knew it. And then Barca too, left. His mind heavy. He would have to tell his boss now, that they would need to find not one, but five sacrifices by morning. As efficient Amon was, he was far too costly. And Barca swore, once more, that he would put a stop to it.

Amon sighed as he heard the nervous series of knocks on his door. The frantic pattern told him it was brother Barca, and that was the reason for his sigh. Brother Barca never came for pleasant reasons. No, where brother Henry would bring wine or father Enrico would come with good food, brother Barca came with scorn and work. A nice irony that entirely went past brother Barca's notice.

"Enter." Amon's voice was hoarse, he had to thank the liquor for that.

The door quickly opened and Amon could hear the soft shuffling of brother Barca before he finally entered his field of vision. Amon took another slow sip from his glass before looking up at an annoyed Barca.

"Good evening, brother Barca, what can I do for you? I assume you are here because you need my help?" Amon made sure to use the words need and help. He knew Barca loathed the fact that they, the holy church, needed to stoop so low as to come to him for help. In a craft, they like to think they have mastered. Amon's lips curled into a small grin. Always arrogant, these humans. They had merely touched the surface when it came to the occult. And they fancied themselves master Exorcists. They didn't even know what an exorcism truly was. Yet.

"Yes, it would seem that the church could make room to put you to work once more, we do try to throw you a bone occasionally. It is in our nature to be giving and good. Alien concepts to you, I am sure." Barca snapped. "There is another S grade Exorcism needed. Not far from here, actually. A brisk walk, for something like you."

Amon ignored the obvious attacks on his person and went directly to the point. "Oh, spare me the vitriol and childish play tonight, Barca, I am in no mood for it. This exorcism you need. Talk. What is it? When did it start? What have you tried so far? Speak fast if you want me to take care of it tonight." Amon looked up at Barca as he swirled the liquor in his glass around. He was pleased to see the result of his words in Barca's eyes.

"We do not know what it is... yet" Barca started, trying to give a good twist to their incompetence. "It started about a week ago, a pastor was contacted two days ago. He contacted us right away. We send a team, as is protocol."

"You send two juniors and one disgruntled senior that are nowhere near the skills they once maintained, as is protocol." Amon corrected Barca. It got him a grunt.

"We send the usual three-man team, yes" Barca continued. "We did not hear back from them, so we sent two golden crosses. Only one reported back, and chances are that he won't survive the night."

This caught Amon's attention. "Two golden crosses? And they did not manage to exorcise it? Who did you send?" He asked, sitting up in his chair and putting down the glass. His senses needed but a moment to sharpen. To his kind, a state of intoxication was a choice, a thought to turn on and off.

"Errebon and Miller. Errebon died." Barca replied short. Amon whistled.

"Those are experts. Errebon was a fool, but a fool that knew what he was doing. What did Miller say?"

"Not much, just that whatever it was, only you would be able to get rid of it. He was shaken, so we don't take his words too seriously. But he said that even all the golden crosses together would not be enough for this." Amon grinned at this.

"Miller is your fifth most experienced exorcist. Errebon was number seven or eight? Out of thirty-five experts total. I would believe him if I were you." Amon stood up and started stretching. He then walked over to his writing desk and put his hand on a thick bound book that rested on top of it. It was closed and locked with two iron clasps.

"Tell Messer to meet me there, in twenty minutes." Amon said as he closed his eyes for a moment while touching the book.

"Messer?" Barca asked, the disdain was palpable in his voice. "Why? And I have yet to tell you where to go."

"You don't tell me where to go, Barca, you ask. And I already know where I need to be, I just checked for myself. And I need Messer because Miller was right. This is not something we see often. I alone won't be enough. At least not if you want to keep your image whole." Amon grabbed a smaller bound book and put it in his coat, then put the coat on and turned towards Barca. "Messer, twenty minutes. Go. I will not wait. And if he is not there, people will notice."

Barca swore under his breath but left. Amon sighed, emptied the glass, and then stepped outside. An intricate dance of his finger locked the door behind him. He knew where he needed to go. He scanned the area with the book earlier. And there was a gaping hole of darkness in the otherwise finely weaved tapestry of light that covered the earth. The handiwork of God and his Angels. Amon had to be quick. A dark hole of this size would eventually grab the attention of his old acquaintances. And Amon had no need to see any of them again. It would be better if they stayed in Heaven.

Amon arrived early, but true to his word, he waited patiently. Messer arrived with only a minute to spare, with Barca close behind him. Neither looked happy.

"I brought your warlock, now get to work." Barca almost spat the words out.

"I am no warlock, priest." Messer replied.

"Shut up, both of you. Barca, make yourself useful. Get people to leave and put a ring of salt and holy water around the whole house. Messer, stop acting like a fool and sense for a moment." Barca groaned but left, happy to get away from the both of them. Messer grumbled but closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them wide.