Vesuvius Falling (audio story)

Vesuvius Falling was the sixtieth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the first story of the Legion series.

Publisher's summary
Things aren't going great for Bernice Summerfield. Her one time comrade-cum-adversary, Irving Braxiatel, isn't the man she knew; her long-lost teenage son, Peter, isn't exactly pleased to see her; and she's woken up with one hell of a hangover...

But when an ancient and dormant spacecraft threatens the safety of Legion City, Bernice and Peter have to put their differences aside in order to investigate an inexplicable mystery involving time-travelling scientists, corporate espionage and simple, cold-blooded murder...

Can Benny discover the true killer before a warp core breach destroys them all? Can a five thousand-year-old body solve a murder yet to happen? And will the Vesuvius fall to the planet below...?

Plot
Although angry at Benny for undermining his reputation by telling stories about his childhood whilst drunk, Peter asks for her assistance with the Vesuvius, a CoreTech spacecraft that left Clantis VII yesterday but, according to a radiation scan, is 5,000 years old. It is heading towards Legion City and he wants her help determining whether it is safe to destroy it. She and Ruth join him in boarding the ship and find a dozen cryo-units.

The trio find the body of Sheira Rynn and the automatic resuscitation system begins. They take Mortan Hardak and Rickard Karne to the medical bay, but Peter, believing that one of them is a murderer, refuses to take them to Legion City until they find out what has happened. When Rickard finds out that Sheira is dead, he accuses Mortan as he was the last to enter suspended animation and tries to get the computer to show the last recording of her, but the footage has been corrupted and he orders the ship to enter lockdown.

Benny separates the two crewmembers and they explain to Ruth and Peter that the Vesuvius passed through a wormhole and went 5,000 years back in time, so they entered suspended animation. Mortan admits to loving Sheira, but she entered into a relationship with Rickard; Rickard, however, says that Mortan was in love with him. Benny attempts to find out what happened to the security recordings and learns that they were last accessed a year after the crew were supposed to have entered cryo-sleep, but Sheira's final journal entry survives. Benny performs an autopsy and watches the journal entry, which shows that she was using cellular-regrowth spores for a bad ankle.

Using a security feature, Rickard gives Peter an electric shock, takes Peter's gun from Ruth and threatens to kill Mortan, but Peter incapacitates him before he can do so. He admits to lying about Mortan being attracted to him and Mortan confesses to having had sex with Sheira after she and Rickard had an argument. Ruth discovers that one of the pods had been active shortly before she, Benny and Peter came aboard.

Benny, having found a draft journal entry recorded by Rickard, enters and reveals that Sheira was never murdered; Rickard discovered that Sheira was an industrial spy for SinoCore, so she set the Vesuvius to fly into the wormhole, killed Rickard and used spores to make herself look him and to make his remains more like her. She was assisted by Mortan, who was also a spy, but he is no longer of use to her and she kills him. As the ship nears meltdown, Jack informs Peter that the Vesuvius will destroy Legion City's dome and Peter orders the ship to be destroyed.

With both Sheira and Rickard registered as deceased, Sheira is unable to stop the warp breach that she caused. Benny, Peter and Ruth escape in their orbiter before the rockets hit and they head back to the city, with Ruth mentioning Peter's boyfriend, Antonio, whom he mentioned to Sheira. He is uninterested in sharing his life with Benny, however, as he feels that she was not there for him on Bastion.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Irving Braxiatel - Miles Richardson
 * Peter Summerfield - Thomas Grant
 * Ruth - Ayesha Antoine
 * Jack - David Ames
 * Mortan Hardak - Andrew Hayden-Smith
 * Rickard Karne - Kai Owen
 * Sheira Rynn - Lizzie Hopley
 * Vesuvius - Jennie Stoller

Worldbuilding

 * Ruth drinks coffee.
 * An individual from the planet Cristic is drinking in the bar.
 * The Vesuvius left Clantis VII and was supposed to explore the Mutari Nebula. It belongs to CoreTech.
 * Rickard is a biologist.
 * Sheira is a navigator.
 * Peter is in a relationship with Antonio.
 * Zachary Altman is CoreTech's chief analyst.
 * Mortan and Sheira worked for EcoPsy, which was taken over by SinoCore.
 * Benny looks up Rickard and Morton on the GalWeb.

Continuity

 * Ruth mentions how Darion, Cordin and Leo were remapped. (AUDIO: Private Enemy No. 1)
 * Peter scoffs when Rickard asks him if he believes in time travel. He has travelled through time before. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Grel Escape, The Adolescence of Time, Ever After Happy)
 * Benny says that her and diaries are "a great match". (PROSE: Love and War, etc.)