Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Skymines of Karthos (audio story)

, or simply The Skymines of Karthos, was the tenth Bernice Summerfield audio story produced by Big Finish Productions.

This was the first audio story to mention Bernice's pregnancy — she fell pregnant in the novel The Squire's Crystal but did not become aware of it until the novel The Infernal Nexus. This was writer David Bailey's second Bernice audio story; he wrote the first story of this audio season, The Secret of Cassandra.

Publisher's summary
When Bernice receives a message from her old friend Caitlin, saying that she's found evidence of a ruined civilisation on the mining colony of Karthos, the good professor is naturally intrigued. After all, the planet is meant to be barren, with no life other than the colonists.

Arriving on Karthos, Bernice finds that Caitlin is missing, and the colony is under attack from vicious creatures that seem to have come from nowhere. Bernice has no choice but to set out for the heart of the ruins to discover just why Karthos seems to have sprung to life once more...

Plot
Benny leaves a voicemail for Braxiatel letting him know that she is taking his shuttle to Karthos, a planet supposedly uninhabited prior to colonisation, to investigate a possible ruin that Caitlin Peters has found. As Benny nears Caitlin and her husband Michael's habipod, she sees several skyminers in skimmers flying into a firestorm to mine thulium and, upon landing, is chased by a bat-like Firefly which suddenly stops and flies off.

Benny learns from Michael, who does not like her, that the colony has been under attack from the Fireflies and that Caitlin disappeared three weeks ago. Although he believes that she left him because of their money troubles, Benny is doubtful and, the next day, she finds a holophoto that Caitlin has taken of a cave painting. They go to see Dr Konstantin, who was sent to Karthos by the ConTech Corporation to study the Fireflies, and wake him up with a stimulant spray upon finding him passed out. He provides them with the navigational scans that Caitlin followed to the mountains and a Geiger counter to detect any approaching Fireflies.

to be completed

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Irving Braxiatel - Miles Richardson
 * Caitlin Peters - Rebecca Jackson
 * Michael Peters - Jimmy Wilson
 * Doctor Konstantin - Johnson Willis

Continuity

 * Benny is visibly pregnant. She conceived in The Squire's Crystal, discovered that she was pregnant at the end of The Infernal Nexus and will give birth in The Glass Prison. The liner notes state that she is about five months along at the time of The Skymines of Karthos.
 * Michael asks about Jason Kane. Benny tells him that he is "alright... now." (PROSE: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Infernal Nexus)