Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Bellotron Incident (audio story)

, or simply The Bellotron Incident, was the opening audio story of the fourth season of Bernice Summerfield.

It was the first performed appearance of the Rutans since 1994's Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans. Bellotron featured Bev Tarrant, a character which "crossed over" from the Doctor Who audio stories The Genocide Machine and Dust Breeding — the first case of a made-for-audio character leaping from one of Big Finish's ranges to another, outside of the special "event" of the Excelis Saga.

The story began a trend that would be carried throughout the fourth series. To a degree only minimally true of previous series, the fourth run of Benny stories knit Benny firmly into the DWU. Each story of the year would feature prominent species from Doctor Who, and would integrate Benny lore from as far back as her first appearances in the Virgin New Adventures. From this story forward, it would be impossible for fans to argue that Benny's post-TARDIS adventures took place in any other universe but the Doctor's.

Publisher's summary
Two aggressive alien races.

A war that has raged for centuries.

A planet that orbits through no man's land.

The Rutan/Sontaran conflict has started to endanger the Terran trade routes, but when the Captain of the battle cruiser Rites of Passage finds an energy signature of artificial origin on the primitive planet of Bellotron he is duty bound to call in the assistance of a qualified academic.

Confronted by savage predators, fiendish traps and the unexpected involvement of an opportunist thief, an unwilling Benny finds herself caught up in a conflict where neither side plays by the rules—and no-one is quite what they seem...

Plot
Rylip the Traveller has found a tomb and exchanges talismans that he found inside for food, wine and coins by claiming that he carved them himself and that they have protective powers. When he returns to his cave, he finds that his Greeper has been killed and is himself attacked.

Aboard the Rites of Passage, Captain Quilby and Commander Ryan detect an artificial electrical signature on Bellotron and send a probe to investigate, finding Rylip and his Greeper's bodies in the cave. As the cave is home to indigenous cultural artefacts and the probe is limited in what technology it can use as a result, Quilby calls Braxiatel and requests an archaeologist to assist him before Bellotron enters Sontaran space. Braxiatel sends Benny to the spaceship and, when she arrives, she deduces from the hieroglyphs that Bellotron was once home to a more advanced civilisation.

Benny and Ryan descend to Bellotron with a group of C-11 Units and, after being attacked by Brill, they follow the electrical signal and avoid a number of booby traps on the way. They encounter a Rutan initially disguised as Rylip, examining a burial urn. After Ryan has the robots kill the Rutan, Bev Tarrant enters with Brill on her heels and runs to safety with Benny and Ryan. Ryan calls off the mission and orders Bev at gunpoint to lead them out. She complies and the three of them fly to the Rites of Passage where Quilby expresses concern at the possibility that the immediately-imprisoned Bev has left a spaceship on Bellotron and agrees with Ryan that the archaeological finds are of little interest.

Bev breaks out of Ryan's cabin and joins Benny in returning to Bellotron to recover the burial urn that the Rutan was interested in. Despite Bev having left the ship, Ryan finds her still in his cabin and realises that the Bev on Bellotron is a Rutan in disguise. The Rutan Bev normalises after finding the urn, revealing that it is a bomb containing a mutagenic virus which will detonate once Bellotron enters Sontaran space and that a faction of Rutans have been attempting to stop it. In fact, the real Benny has only just arrived on the Rites of Passage and the one on Bellotron is a member of said faction; both the Rutan Benny and Rutan Bev are killed by a Sontaran battlecruiser which was tipped off about the bomb.

The real Benny and Bev meet and drink with Ryan, learning that both of them travelled with the Doctor. With everything that has happened, they ask Ryan to make sure that their drinks are doubles.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Bev Tarrant - Louise Faulkner
 * Irving Braxiatel - Miles Richardson
 * Joseph - Steven Wickham
 * Commander Ryan - Karl Hansen
 * Captain Patrick Quilby - Peter John

Crew

 * Cover Art - Adrian Salmon
 * Producer & Director - Gary Russell
 * Executive Producer - Jason Haigh-Ellery
 * Music - David Darlington
 * Sound Design - Andrew J Swann
 * Writer - Mike Tucker

Culture

 * Bellotron is a Grade One Planet is a matriarchal society.
 * Bernice mentions Bartleby's Planetary Gazetteer and wants to get the cruk off Bellotron.

Individuals

 * Both Bev and Bernice get copied by a Rutan.

Planets

 * Bellotron's orbit takes it through Sontaran space and Rutan space, with only a 54 hours between being in either space.
 * When looking at some hieroglyphs, Benny noticed that some of them looked like alphabets found on Earth and Argolis.
 * Benny mentions Rigel 9.

Species

 * Benny laments that the alien script might as well be written in Ogron, and that she acts like a total Ogron.
 * The Brill are large cats that hunt in packs.

Rutans

 * They've developed a mutagenic virus/bomb they plan to disperse through Sontaran space by blowing up Bellotron. After which, the Rutan Empire will target humanity.

Technology

 * Quilby says that Dr Engelman can translate technobabble.
 * Both the Sontarans and Rutans have access to stealth technology.
 * A Mark VII probe droid has 14 anti-collision devices.
 * The C-11s are six-foot tall droids with cloaking devices, and are made of duralinium.
 * Benny's warp-flight through hyperspace from KS-159 is via cryotube stasis, which had a fast-learn unit.
 * Bev doesnt' watch vidcasts.

Ships

 * The cruiser Rites of Passage is patrolling nearly 40 parsecs of empty space, along with the Potemkin, Odyssey, and Prince of Wales.
 * Sontaran cruisers include the Stor-class attack craft.

Continuity

 * Captain Quilby suggest that the Zzinbriizi might be responsible for the alien activity on Bellotron. (PROSE: Prime Time)
 * Benny states that the sun sigil is similar to ones on Earth, Argolis, (TV: The Leisure Hive) and Blinni-Gaar. (PROSE: Prime Time)
 * Bev mentions that she's not from this time and place, and that she got here because of the Seventh Doctor. (AUDIO: The Genocide Machine, Dust Breeding)
 * Benny's encountered Rutans before. (PROSE: Shakedown)