Ia Buur Fhtagn!

My race is over. And despite Alec Turner’s claims I perceive the man known as Cmdr Buur not to be a zombie. He is something altogether more terrible, more abominable, than any mere walking dead figure could ever muster in my horrifically traumatized mind. The sinister, powerful and antediluvian consciousness behind the Buur Protectorate is a reality the rest of inhabited space knows precious little about.

It won’t be long until the awfulness of the past fortnight has been erased completely. For I am dying, and I must work hard to hold onto my memories and record what I can. My suit can only hold onto its rationed oxygen for another hour and then I am finished. All attempts to recall my ship have failed and all attempts to send an S.O.S. have come to naught. Soon I will be no more, and only the awful, distant visage of the tower of Pippin Beacon will bear witness to it. So I am recording this message on my suit’s computer and sending it out into the void in the hope that someone may one day find it and discover the dreadful truth about the Protectorate.

The participants of the Buckyball Racing Club had all been eagerly awaiting the ensuing race in the Triple Eight racing season following the Oriental romance of the Questing for Qixi race. I was feeling rather enthused, and having more than my usual allotted time for taking part thought I was in with a fortuitous chance of finding myself considerably higher on the leaderboard than where I am usually accustomed.

It was with quite considerable surprise, then, when I received a most mysterious voice message of a suspiciously insalubrious nature. The anonymous entity wished to meet with myself at a seemingly insignificant settlement on a moon in the system of Zomba. A most inconsequential body that fell under the influence of the well known and highly respected Buur Protectorate. I would have paid the alarming request no great heed had the stranger insisted that they had called on the behest of the race sponsor and would provide a startling insight as to its vital purpose. Naturally my curiosity had been more than adequately piqued and I agreed to allow the meeting to transpire.

Once I had ordered the relocation of the Garden to the Zomba system I departed in my racing interplanetary conveyance the I Think I’m Going Bald and proceeded to fly expectantly down to the moon where the encounter was to take place.

I wasn’t kept waiting for a disagreeable amount of time. I remained hidden in the shadows of the settlement’s main building and, as promised, a lone, hooded, portentous figure appeared under the light. I went over to greet them as they acknowledged my presence with an intimidating raised hand. They looked around warily before announcing themselves.

“Hey! Geddy! It’s me – Alec.”

“It’s because, Ged, I need you to do some investigating for me.” My curiosity had been engaged, yet was tempered somewhat by Alec’s nervousness. “You know Commander Buur?” he added.

“The brave and fearless leader of the Buur Protectorate? Nobody seems to be able to scratch the fellow, Of course.”

“Well, I’ve seen stuff, Geddy. Terrible stuff. I’ve been shown countless video evidence that Buur has been killed, dozens of times, too, at least.”

I felt horrified, “Killed? Don’t be ridiculous! How is he still alive?”

“Well, that’s just the thing, Ged, he ain’t. Buur is a zombie!”

I was shocked into silence. My jaw felt frozen in place. Had my dear friend finally descended into insanity? Yet, as I proceeded to doubt his wondrous assumption, it began to make sense. Alec certainly wasn’t one to invent apocryphal tales, and Buur did seem to have some sorcerous ability to survive the most furious of altercations in service of the Protectorate.

Alec continued to share with me the details of the race. We were to land at most of the settlements, find the nearest terminal at any three and navigate our way to the mission board. From there we would be able to swiftly and surreptitiously download a “jigsaw” of a piece of information that could, when all assembled together, provide enough solid evidence for the Galactic powers that be to intercede. The quicker we could chain all these downloads together, the greater the quality of the evidence.

I saluted my old friend, which Alec promptly returned before making his way back into the shadows of the settlement. I took my racing ship to the station that had been designated as the start, Culpeper Gateway, which was safely nested away in the neighbouring system of Glooscap. There were still a few idle days to go before the so called contest was to begin and so I busied myself with learning the routes and tricky supercruise manoeuvres I would endeavour to attempt in order to achieve a reasonable time.

Zomba is a moon unlike most moons. Its surface not being at all blessed with suitable landing areas, especially for the larger, more cumbersome vessels, and requiring some considerable luck to locate. Its local, albeit rather meagre population, were gathered together in a few small, mainly agricultural research settlements each consisting of a compliment of thirty or so scientists and technicians.

As I traversed from place to place, noting where I could rapidly reach the nearest terminals, I also observed the people who, whilst not actively hostile, were mostly not actively welcoming either. And even when they did try to be welcoming, it was not attempted without a degree of disdain. There was an eeriness about each and every settlement, the source of which I could not accurately fathom.

I decided until the race was due to commence it would be be astute to interact with the settlers as little as possible, and just concentrate on finding the quickest way to fly between these places and possibly discover the most efficient order in which to visit them.

There was one required stop, however, that cemented my concerns about the moon completely.

Pippin Beacon I found to be a place of barely concealed menace. A ship could not be brought within three kilometres of the great towering monstrosity without incurring a fine and one would also incur the aggression of the considerable defence systems if one tarried even longer. The only reason to alight here in the race rules that I could discern had nothing at all to do with investigation and everything to do with surface vehicle obsession. Turner has a particular fondness for the conveyance in question and insisted on hammering the square pegs of SRV sections into the round holes of the races. It must be noted that I do usually relish racing in the SRV. It was just the awfulness of the location itself to which I objected. There was, however, a simple bonus structure to make the inclusion more agreeable to the less skilled SRV chauffeur. It was also not even mandatory to use the vehicle at all but Turner used the bonus system to make it just tempting enough that I was considering partaking of it, despite my reservations alluding to the intimidatory nature of the Beacon.

Once the race had begun in earnest, and I judged that I might finally be qualified enough to attempt a valid run, I blasted the Baldy from the docking slot of Culpeper Gateway, much to the consternation of the flight control staff, and jumped my ship to the Zomba system in the hope of being able to complete my tasks within an acceptable time.

I decided it would be wisest to visit the awful Beacon first, and therefore engage with the wheeled section of the race without having to concern myself with the abominable place for the remainder of my manoeuvres. It was hardly navigated in the most delicate of manners, and I must confess I took great effort in sending the vehicle hither and thither without making much progress towards the Beacon at all. Yet still I managed to reach the minimum distance and, bouncing and spinning back from whence I came, I was able to safely summon my ship and make off for the next stop.

It was a relief to leave. The rest of the attempt I decided to take at a pace where I knew I would be unlikely to perform a fatal mistake. The locals still eyed me with suspicion and would point disparagingly toward me whenever I caught their attention. It seemed to take aeons to arrive at my final stop from whence I could jump back to the Glooscap system where the softly rotating Coriolis station of Culpepper Gateway safely nestled. A consolation of what I presumed would be a less than acceptable time was the small appreciation of a well executed gravity breaking manoeuvre to jump into the vicinity of Culpepper, A feat I would repeat every time I returned to the station!

I was correct in my assumption of my time. I was less than impressed with its lack of adequacy.

It was clear I would need to work tirelessly on my woefully wanting performance. I knew I must chose an itinerary that would cause my ship to visit each settlement sequentially as they were planted across the globe. I would also need to extensively rehearse my spiral approach before my ship entered orbital flight without hitting the exclusion zone too rapidly. Yet I also needed to snoop around and hopefully discover clues as to the nature of Cmdr. Buur’s incessant reanimations.

I thought it might be best to interrogate the supposed necromorphic commander in order to gain a slither of insight into his secrets. I was sure, however, I would not be granted an audience due to my reputation with the Protectorate being merely neutral. Therefore I took on package delivery jobs from the terminals located at those eerie settlements and narrowed the assignments down to deliveries only to the surface settlements on the body on which the race was staged. I was able to investigate each of these packages mid voyage and many of them contained the strangest commodities.

Furthermore, my skill at quickly navigating down to a surface target from distant space commenced to be more reliable and was resulting in a far lower percentage of failure. Even my supercruise arc from area to area on the same moon, involving a short, controlled burst from the overcharge was gradually becoming optimised. There was soon only one more package to deliver before I judged my reputation with the Protectorate would be sufficient to be permitted that audience with Cmdr. Buur.

I secured the large and weighty container from a particularly dour employee and proceeded to transport it to its destination. It was a delivery which bore the mark of important on the mission board and the package was to be delivered forthwith. Once I was safely in orbital flight I reduced the ship’s throttle and dropped out of supercruise to examine the contents, eager to see what mysteries it would reveal.

It proved rather difficult to unlock its secrets without leaving any evidence leading to the conclusion that the contents had been insalubriously perused but I somehow managed. and was curiously surprised to discover an ancient, decrepit, untitled and mostly unreadable book. It had an appalling smell and seemed to be bound in some sort of animal skin, although I could not remember having encountered an animal bearing skin with the worryingly familiar texture that encased these ghastly pages.

One was most definitely the reverse of the other, this much was quite plain. I concluded that it possibly might be that one undid the spell or process that the other created but as to the actual process I had no idea.

Just what sort of practices was the Protectorate a party too?

I closed the package, but made a brief detour to my fleet carrier, the Garden in order to quickly make a copy of the page before resealing the package and taking it to its destination.

The acceptance of my request was returned to me within hours. And whilst I had been waiting I busied myself on the Baldy‘s computer, tasked with researching the history and lineage of the Commander of the Buur Protectorate. Immediately I was struck with yet another mystery. There were reports of a Cmdr. Buur having been active as far back as Commander Jameson’s time. No result of the name as a space-farer at least before then. That Buur had had multitudinous dealings with a company headed by a certain Charles Dexter Ward, a name that with further research went all the way back to the first half of the twentieth century. There was no time to research prior to that character, however as my appointment with Buur himself was imminent.

I flew to their carrier and was permitted to meet Cmdr. Buur in the office that adjoined the command deck. Cmdr. Rheeny was waiting at the door. She smiled at me warmly and gestured for me to walk straight in. There he sat, overly bescarfed, quietly and commandingly behind his desk. He smiled and gestured graciously for me to take a seat. I decided a wise tactic would be to take a sympathetic approach to this interview, and seemingly take his side of the story.

“Cmdr Buur!” I smiled and reached over to shake the man’s hand, which was warmly reciprocated, “How very polite of you to grant me this interview. I really wasn’t expecting you to be so accommodating.”

Buur laughed back, “Haha, you weren’t!? Who’s been talking about me like that? Was it Alec?” he made a tired, resigned face, as if this was exactly the sort of thing he’d expect from my friend.

This merely served to reinforce the idea I should play along, “He doesn’t know I’m here. I find his methods and reasoning…alarming. You know about his preposterous idea that you must be a zombie, don’t you?”

I couldn’t very well quarrel with him about that. The more I observed Buur’s countenance, the more ridiculous Turner’s accusation became.

“You do seem to have a lot of conflicts protecting your systems Cmdr Buur, and there is footage of you receiving wounds that could only result in death over and over again. How do you survive such dreadful injuries?”

Buur sighed, as if he had completely lost track of exactly how many times he’d been asked this, “Space is dangerous. Deadly even. It’s sensible to ensure that there’s abundant medical equipment available, whenever or wherever it’s needed. Rheeny and I have taken great care to corral together some of the most advanced and skilled medical care you can receive in the Bubble, really cutting edge stuff. We both owe our lives to those people who work for us so loyally.”

I had heard enough. Alec’s charade was all too silly, “Well, that’s fine Cmdr. Buur. I’m done now. I can’t detect any evidence of…ah…zombieness whatsoever. I wish you all the best. I’ll go and report back to Turner. Thank you so much for your time.”

“Not at all! I appreciate the chance to address these ridiculous…accusations…and lay them to rest, as it were. Thank you for the opportunity.” He smiled, stood and shook my hand once more, “Tell Alice I said ‘Hi!'”

I stood to leave, yet there was still the book, and those chants. I decided now would be the time to go all in.

“Just one more thing Cmdr. Buur. I have taken to helping the Protectorate by delivering packages. The final package wasn’t secured properly and, mid transport, it left this paper sheet behind in my hold. I thought I’d hand it to you seeing as I was coming to see you anyway. It seems highly unusual! Any idea what it might be?”

I brandished the copy I had made, and set it before him on the desk. Buur stared at it, momentarily stunned. He sat back down wearily and utterly failed to keep the panic from his features. Immediately Rheeny came rushing in, deeply concerned. She saw the manuscript I had left on the desk and flashed a desperate look of suspicion toward me.

“I… Never seen that before.” he managed, ” Take it! Take it away! Please …I really am quite exhausted. No further questions.”

Rheeny handed back the paper with a scowl and I saw myself out, and hurried back to my ship.

Now that was interesting! Not a zombie, oh no! But what?

Before heading out to race from Culpepper Gateway the next day I had a chance to perform a more intensive and far reaching study into the distant lineage of Cmdr. Buur using the more powerful artificial intelligences provided by the networks at the station. I was intrigued by this Charles Dexter Ward fellow who a Cmdr. Buur spent so much time with during Jameson’s era. That name surfaces every one hundred years or so all the way back to the early to mid twentieth century New England on Earth in the Sol system, long before humankind’s colonisation of the stars. A man bearing the name and reportedly involved with ghoulish occupations was committed to a mental asylum but seemed to completely disappear from his cell. Now this Dexter Ward, from reports at the time, was heavily involved with a Joseph Curwen. A name that, upon even further investigation, surfaced once before as far back as seventeenth century New England where the character was rumoured to have been involved in the ghastly, forbidden, sorcerous occupations of grave robbing and necromancy.

I could have spent the rest of the week with my anatomization of Buur’s heritage but it had to come to an end.

It was time to attempt a more efficient time for this race!

So back out to the Baldy I went and fired her up for the last group of runs. Surely I would perform much better! I felt confident after having spent most of the week practicing my manoeuvres that I could produce a vastly better time!

After abandoning the first few endeavours I finally happened upon a good streak of skill! I managed to make the initial spiral approach to the moon and broke into orbit at a favourable angle to the first target. I had decided to leave the SRV bonus until the end this time allowing for me to clear each of the six orbital arcs first before bouncing the scarab toward and then away from the Beacon. Each of the first five manoeuvres went rather well so much so that I had launched from the fifth settlement before eighteen minutes had elapsed since the start – a full ten minutes quicker than my previous submitted time at this point. Yet when I hit the overdrive to arc around to Pippin Beacon I neglected to hit it once more to shut the thing back down almost immediately afterward and shot my ship over five hundred light seconds into space. It was terribly frustrating as I had no more time for a further attempt that day.

The following morning repeated the first few abandoned attempts due to ludicrous errors but during my final attempt I was making better and more efficient piloting than ever before. I even managed to land at Pippin Beacon just outside the three kilometre minimum distance. I targeted the Beacon, took out the SRV and accelerated toward my destination. My flyving was, whilst not entirely skilful, still of a serviceable speed and direction with minimum damage to my vehicle. Ignoring the dreadful tower, I reached and sailed over the adjacent target within the distance allowed and then turned slightly in an effort to make for the flatter ground so as to make it easier to reach the distance required to be able to recall my ship.

By now however, I was having difficulty controlling the SRV. I was becoming disorientated and my instruments were giving out bizarre readings. Then, during a particularly high bounce, my vehicle back flipped and in a desperate and panicked attempt at correction, I somehow shut the scarab’s systems off.

It plummeted downwards, slowly gaining speed. Had the gravity not been the tiniest fraction of that of Earth I surely would have died there and then. As it was the impact was still enough to persuade my consciousness to desert me.

It was pitch black inside, with no obvious mechanism to provide illumination. I was forced to rely on just my shoulder lamp. It was hard to navigate around but the layout was not too dissimilar to some of the laboratorial settlements found throughout inhabited space and it wasn’t long before I was somewhat able to get my bearings.

One room was labelled “Essential Salt Storage” and, intrigued, I investigated within. Here could be found shelves and shelves of the same pitchers as the ones I had transported for the Protectorate just a few days ago. All of them had a persons name, it seemed, labelled on them but as I ventured deeper into that room the antique jugs became visibly much older. Many of them were empty but a few here and there contained the same strange powder as the ones in that package. I recalled the chants that I had copied, pulled out the paper from my backpack and studied the words. Now, were those curious symbols horseshoes? Or were they pitchers? As I continued to study each one I came across one empty container that caused me to gasp audibly.

For that pitcher was labelled, “Commander Buur”!

I did not have time to ponder this discovery, whether it was due to my loud gasp of shock or some other unfathomable reason a horrendous groan sounded distantly in the blackness. The sound was petrifying, and neither of human nor any animal or life form known in the galaxy. I swung around toward its direction, back out to the entrance of the store room but my lamp could not pierce the blackness far enough. Trying to make as little noise as possible I made my way out from that room and shone my lamp around in a bid to discover some shelter where I might lay low. The groan sounded once more, yet louder, closer and dripping with malice.

I do not know what form of courage or stupidity drove me, but I found myself creeping steadily in the direction from whence the appalling vociferation originated. Whatever diabolical creature it might be, I concluded it could not be a match for a rifle and so I drew my weapon, I crept ever closer, my lamp all but penetrating the darkness until the corridor I was following reached some sort of holding room labelled, “Unfinished Work”. I crept in, shining my lamp in each of the cells. The first was empty, yet dank and stained with dry blood. The second contained some unintelligible organic mass which appeared to be in an advanced state of decay. It’s stench nearly caused me to expel the contents of my stomach. The third cell, to my utmost horror, had at some point been broken out of, the door completely smashed off its hinges.

Then a petrifying, furious scream sounded directly behind me.

It grabbed me by the throat, lifted me up and thrust me against the wall, causing my weapon to fall uselessly to the ground. The sheer power of its limb was incredible. It screamed deafeningly in my face from one of its maws, pulled me away from the wall and threw me across the floor, into the cell from which it had erupted. It gazed at me for a while, gurgling and snorting deeply. Terror had taken me completely. I was unable to move or cry out. It regarded me viciously for a while longer, then moved slowly and purposefully toward me. I screamed once more, and suddenly remembered one of the chants. I have no idea why but I yelled the second line at it at as loudly as my lungs would allow.

“OGTHROD AI’F GEB’L EE’H YOG-SOTHOTH ‘NGAH’NG AI’Y ZHRO!”

The creature screeched so loudly I childishly covered both ears. Its body convulsed violently, It appeared to quickly desiccate before my eyes which proceeded to cascade into a knee high pile of powder.

I did not wait. I picked myself up and ran, ran from that place as fast as my legs could move. I ran and ran until I could run no more and collapsed. I lay there for a minute or two, trying to understand the horror of what I had just witnessed.

I have only minutes left. My oxygen is gone. And I send this testimony out into the black now in the hope that it will soon be found.

---

Rescue Rangers Report 02/09/3310

Client Name: Leeya Geddy

Cause of Injury/Emergency: Suit depleted of oxygen

Other Notes: This case is rather concerning. Miss Geddy’s message was read and the fantastical nature of it was bizarre to say the least. A nasty scratch was found on Miss Geddy’s face presumably caused by broken glass and remnants of a mild hallucinogen was discovered in her blood. This might go some way to explaining things. The laboratories at Pippin Beacon were investigated as is protocol and none of these “pitchers” could be found. The cells were clean and, apart from an uncommonly large amount of dust on the floor there was nothing untoward.

Recommendations: Miss Geddy is facing multiple charges of trespass and interference with delivery packages. However, Cmdr. Buur kindly wishes all charges dropped and nothing else said about the matter. It is his jurisdiction. Our psychologist recommends a partial memory wipe so Miss Geddy remembers only the race. It is unfortunate her final attempt wasn’t successful or her memories might have been less damaging.

---

Afterword

Well, that was my very first attempt at Lovecraftian Horror. While I don’t think much of the man himself I do love his stories and the mythos he created. I really hope it wasn’t too shaky. Bringing “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” kicking and screaming into the thirty third century was a struggle but it was tremendous fun and I’ve learned at lot!

This race was exceptional. Even though I was unsuccessful in improving my time I have learned more about quickly approaching and landing at a surface target than ever before. I just need to get that error percentage down like I’ve done with gravity breaking towards an orbital installation. It’s only a matter of time.

Shaye’s genius astounds me. How he does what he does must involve antediluvian incantations somehow!

A massive, “THANK YOU” goes out to Alec Turner for running a marvellous race with the ingenious premise of figuring out how to use SCO to get from a surface site, to an adjacent surface site. Such finesse is needed and I managed to nail it once or twice. Just not five times in a row. The whole affair was run brilliantly, with regular, wonderfully written updates and a totally bonkers Buur Zombie story.

Another massive thankyou goes out to Cmdr. Buur for being a wonderful sport and for granting me that brilliantly acted interview. Even though my genre of story had completely changed by the time I actually came to write the report. Buur, of course, is not the re=animation of a sixteenth century Necromancer but a wonderful, wonderful bloke with a fantastic squadron and YouTube channel. The in game videography by his wife, Cmdr. Rheeny, is the best you’ll ever see! I only wish I had had time to weave her into the story more than she was.

A huge thankyou to everyone who took part, and congratulations. You racers and your contributions on the forum and discord are what makes Buckyball the incredible community it is!

And last, but my no means least, a deeply grateful thank you to Mert Genccinar who very kindly allowed me the use of the terrifying painting that inspired my depiction of one of the “Unfinished Works” from holding cells of Pippin Beacon. You can peruse his macabre yet outstanding work here, or check out his Reddit.