The Lights of Skaro (audio story)

The Lights of Skaro was the fourth full cast audio story in The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield audio anthology released in 2014 by Big Finish Productions. It saw the death of Audrey Dudman, Ace's mother, bringing Ace's long and often difficult history with her to a close.

Publisher's summary
Bernice Summerfield is on Skaro, and she's very much on her own. The Doctor can't get to her, not this time. All Benny can do is stay alive for as long as possible. And, in a city full of Daleks, that's not going to be very long.

Plot
Asleep in his bunker, forgotten by the Daleks, Davros muses upon how time is broken on Skaro and that nothing must come in the way of the return of his creations. One day, he shall return and ensure that the Daleks never forget him again.

The Daleks shoot Klinus and Benny, Ace, Klinus, Foster and Varna flee and are separated. Benny is cornered and, blaming herself for Klinus's death, commands a Dalek to exterminate her, but escapes when a lift arrives. The Doctor is unable to materialise the TARDIS until the time lock collapses and appears to Benny as a projection, telling her that he hoped that she would keep Ace from reaching Skaro. With time still broken, she sees the planet's destruction by the exploding sun and an infected Dalek.

Benny is trapped in a hydroponics centre and attacked by Dalek mutants before Ace turns on the lights and saves her, holding off the Daleks when they arrive. Benny runs and time jumps to the Dalek Emperor, damaged during the Civil War, and, after accusing him of keeping the Daleks stupid so that they will obey him, she walks away, believing it to be the greatest insult she can give him. She encounters Klinus, who reveals that he and Varna were dead the whole time; he was a Kaled artist during the Thousand Year War who was recruited to become one of the first Daleks. He refuses to remember what he did as a Dalek and returns to history, asking her to remember him.

Benny encounters an early Dalek who had hoped to leave his casing before learning that his kind could not survive without radiation. In order to be able to go on and return to studying science, the Daleks exterminated the Thals, but upon learning of time travel and life on other planets from a stranger they decided to leave and conquer space once power was returned to the city. The Doctor appears again and reveals that he was the stranger and is responsible for all of the disasters that Benny has seen.

Benny finds Varna and Foster in a control room, having revived a prototype Dalek with static electricity. Foster did not really come to Skaro to make a documentary but to help the Daleks overcome their need for static electricity in return for knowledge. The Dalek exterminates Foster for his supposed inferiority and Varna out of jealousy, unable to bear the fact that Daleks came from specimens like the Kaleds. He lets Benny go and she finds Ace, fastened to a wall for interrogation.

Ace tells Benny that the Doctor sent her to the Academy on Gallifrey and, after learning of her mother's slow death to cancer and the Daleks' destruction of Talmeson, she tried to time lock the Daleks out of history with an unstable Omega Device early in their history. Benny believes that what Ace tried to do was wrong and will not help her complete the job even if it would save her own mother from extermination, so she leaves her behind.

With the time lock in its final stages, the TARDIS materialises and the Doctor quickly runs into Benny. They return to Ace and the Doctor and Benny agree to give the Omega Device to the Dalek who let Benny go. It creates a time corridor to the future and the Dalek's future-self emerges; the future Dalek tells the past one that they will never leave their casings and walk on Skaro even after four thousand centuries, leading them to destroy one another. The paradox collapses the time lock and the Omega Device is destroyed.

The Doctor releases Ace with his sonic screwdriver and, furious with her, sends her to the TARDIS. He invites Benny to join him for a while until Ace is ready to return to Gallifrey. She agrees to travel with them again for a bit and the Doctor says that it is time for some new adventures.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Ace - Sophie Aldred
 * Davros - Terry Molloy
 * The Emperor / The Daleks - Nicholas Briggs
 * Varna - Amber Revah
 * Klinus - Matthew Gravelle
 * Foster - Colin MacFarlane

Crew

 * Cover Art - Tom Webster
 * Director - Scott Handcock
 * Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
 * Music and Sound Design - Steve Foxon
 * Writer & Producer - James Goss
 * Daleks and Davros created by Terry Nation

Worldbuilding

 * Klinus was a Kaled soldier towards the end of the Thousand Year War.
 * The Kaleds mastered alchemy.
 * When Ace was attending the Time Lord Academy on Gallifrey, she discovered that her mother Audrey Dudman had died of cancer.
 * After World War II, the name "Adolf" virtually disappeared not only in Germany but all over Earth due to its association with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
 * The Doctor believes that Ace will either become a renegade Time Lord or Lord President of the High Council of the Time Lords.
 * Benny refers to the Thals.
 * Klinus made a sculpture called Eternal War.
 * Ace was tasked with looking over Talmeson.

Continuity

 * Davros reflects on his creations' betrayal. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
 * Benny comments that she would rather hug a Slyther than have her nerves fried as it would be quicker and less painful. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
 * During one of the time jumps, the Daleks experience the destruction of Skaro's sun as a result of the Hand of Omega. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
 * Benny compares the Doctor unfavourably to the Star Wars character Yoda. She first researched Yoda on Jaiwan, when she was 21, on the advice of Professor Mariela Ankola. (PROSE: Genius Loci)
 * Ace and Benny encounter a Dalek mutant. (TV: The Daleks)
 * Benny refers to the fact that her mother Claire Summerfield was exterminated by the Daleks on Beta Caprisis in 2548. (PROSE: Love and War, Set Piece)
 * During one of the time jumps, Benny interacts with the Dalek Emperor at the conclusion of the Dalek Civil War. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)
 * Benny refers to the Thousand Year War. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
 * Klinus refers to the creation of the Daleks. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks; AUDIO: Guilt)
 * A Dalek tells Benny about the events surrounding the Doctor's first visit to Skaro during his first incarnation. Having learned of the existence of life on other planets from the Doctor, the Daleks vowed to conquer the universe and master time travel in order to regain their power. (TV: The Daleks)
 * Varna refers to the Dals. (TV: The Daleks, AUDIO: Purity, Guilt)
 * The Daleks fasten Ace to a wall using a magnetic collar. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
 * Ace is attending the Time Lord Academy on Gallifrey. (AUDIO: Dominion)
 * Ace refers to the mission that the Time Lords sent the Fourth Doctor on to avert the creation of the Daleks. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks, AUDIO: Ascension)
 * While musing on her relationship with Klinus, Benny refers to a war where women who were thought to be "collaborating" with the enemy had their hair forcibly removed. The Sixth Doctor, Flip Ramon and Constance Clarke were witnesses to such an act in France, July 1944. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth)
 * Benny passes through Section 3 and encounters the ghost of one of the Daleks who died after consuming the anti-radiation drug. (TV: The Daleks)
 * Foster refers to the Daleks being able to turn iron into gold, knowledge that Varna claims they inherited from the Kaleds. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)