Dragons' Wrath (audio story)

Dragons' Wrath was the sixth and final audio story published by Big Finish Productions in the first season of their Bernice Summerfield series. It was the final Big Finish adaptation of a Virgin New Adventures novel until 2012's Love and War.

The story featured a performance by Richard Franklin, better known for his role of Captain Mike Yates of UNIT in televised Doctor Who.

Publisher's summary
The warlord Gamaliel from the legendary Knights of Jeneve captured the Gamalian Dragon,­ a jewel-encrusted statuette, after the Battle of Bocaro. It is now sought by Romolo Nusek, apparently Gamaliel's descendant, to prove his right to assume his ancestor's mantle as ruler of the Sector.

When Benny joins a group seeking to find the legendary statuette, she has a secret. No one can possibly find one on Stanturus because she's already carrying it ­left for her by a murdered colleague.

The trouble is, the expedition does find one and, as a result, most of them are mysteriously slaughtered. Benny realises she and historian Nicholas Clyde must discern the traitor in their midst. Could it be Gilder, the obsequious administrator from Benny's own university? Could it be Truby Kamadrich, the famous archaeologist? Or might it be the bizarre librarian Reddick, who never leaves Nusek's vaults, protected by an inhospitable volcano?

Plot
After being kicked out of a bar, Benny finds Professor Newark Rappare bleeding in an alley and staunches his gunshot wound. Before he dies, he mentions a dragon and the name "Mastrov" and tells her to take his key card, which she uses it to enter his art studio at St Oscar's and take a dragon statuette. She attends a meeting at which Dr Truby Kamadrich asks her and Dr Nicholas Clyde to take part in an excavation on Stanturus Three funded by Romolo Nusek, whose integrity Nicholas questions. He informs Benny that Nusek is descended from Hugo Gamaliel, who stole the Gamalian Dragon statuette.

Benny takes Nicholas to her rooms and shows her the Gamalian Dragon, which bewilders him as he knows the statuette to be in the archives on Tharn and almost impossible to be replicated given how rarely it is seen by any but Nusek. To solve this mystery and Rappare's death, Benny and Nicholas accept Kamadrich's offer and meet Nusek, accompanied by St Oscar's accounts manager Mappin Gilder to ensure that they do not jeopardise the funding that Nusek is offering the university. Benny and Nicholas get permission to see the Gamalian Dragon and are given a tour of the archives by Reddick, who tells them that it has not been removed for two centuries nor have there been any attempts to steal it. However, Benny notices that the velvet it rests on is slightly disturbed.

Benny and Nicholas sneak back into the archive and are attacked by a cryvok, an android Rottweiler, which Nicholas hits with Benny's backpack. She switches Nusek's dragon with Rappare's and flees from two other cryvoks and meets Nicholas in the library where, comparing a bookcase to its depiction in a painting, Benny discovers a secret passageway and are welcomed by Reddick to his cavern. Reddick has been collecting books that Nusek wants destroyed due to them being critical of Gamaliel and leads Benny and Nicholas out in time for them to board the shuttle to Stanturus Three. During the journey, Benny compares Nusek's dragon with a hologram of Rappare's and confirms that they are completely identical.

On Stanturus Three, Benny is bitten by rat creatures and forced to stay in bed. She uses her computer to analyse Gamaliel's famous victory in the Battle of Bocaro and finds that it cannot work out how he could have defeated the Knights of Jeneve. She waits to hear from Nicholas, but he and several other members of the team are apparently killed in an explosion which destroys the ruins they were examining. When Benny looks at the footage, however, she finds that Nicholas is alive and locates him, unconscious. He tells her that a spaceship bearing Nusek's emblem was behind the explosion and they did not find anything in the ruins, but Kamadrich claims that they found a Gamalian Dragon. Nicholas is made a scapegoat and arrested.

Benny examines the third dragon and discovers that it does not match the other two. However, she realises that that would be seen as evidence that Rappare's and Nusek's are fakes, made from the same mould. She returns to Dellah with Gilder and is hit over the head upon arriving at her home. Before the hearing on the authenticity of the third dragon, Kamadrich approaches Benny and they return to Benny's room to discuss their suspicions about Nusek, with Kamadrich suggesting that Nicholas might be responsible for the sabotage and attacking Benny to keep her from attending the hearing. Benny, however, has deduced from Kamadrich knowing where her coffee is that she is Nusek's right-hand, Mastrov.

Benny breaks Nicholas out of his cell and they are immediately confronted by Kamadrich and locked up, but Gilder finds them and releases them. He first calls Nicholas to give his expert opinion on the Gamalian Dragon rather than one of the two caterers that Nusek requested and, Benny notices, Nusek seems surprised when his emblem is mentioned as being on the ship that killed the archaeologists. When Benny is called, she claims that the two identical Gamalians are fakes made by Rappare and smashes one of them, saying that the real one contains a video link as it was bugged by the Knights of Jeneve and allowed to be taken by Gamaliel. With his ancestor's honour in question, Nusek openly admits his scheme, incorrectly believing that Mastrov had ended the video feed.

On the return journey to Dellah, Benny pieces together that Nicholas and Reddick are both Knights of Jeneve and Gilder realises that Nicholas was the one who killed the archaeologists. Nicholas admits that he killed them all when they found Gamalian bodies which proved that Gamaliel had had an outpost on the planet, which could have encouraged warlords to ally themselves with Nusek. Their ship is intercepted by Mastrov and they are taken back to Tharn where Nusek orders them to be thrown into a volcano. Reddick saves them, but Nicholas tries to take the Gamalian Dragons and falls into the volcano with Mastrov, his last words being to point Benny to his keyboard. Benny uses it to set the Gamalian Dragon to self-destruct and flees with Reddick, whom she and Mappin lock up until he tells them about the Knights.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Romolo Nusek - Richard Franklin
 * Nicholas Clyde - Nigel Fairs
 * Truby Kamadrich - Jane Burke
 * Mappin Gilder - Gary Russell
 * Reddick - Jez Fielder

Worldbuilding

 * Rappare has a forgery of the Mona Lisa.
 * The first relic that Nicholas unearthed himself was, he claims, a computer keyboard which he keeps as a lucky charm. In fact, it is a detonator for the bomb in the Gamalian Dragon.
 * Wolsey greets Benny when she returns home.
 * Kamadrich makes Benny coffee.
 * Hilda Rummage and Mary-Beth Dooley were in charge of catering at the dig.

Continuity
to be added