Continuing the adventures of Blake’s 7 – The Early Years from b7media, The Dust Run by Simon Guerrier is our first “Jenna” story.  The character didn’t get too big of a role in the original Blake’s 7 – The Audio Adventures trilogy, and so this is a welcome instalment.  In this story, like the original trilogy, Jenna Stannis is played by Carrie Dobro who’s perhaps best known as Dureena Nafeel in the Babylon 5 spin-off series Crusade and not by original TV series actress Sally Knyvette.

THE DUST RUN

The story opens with Jenna giving an explanation for some wrong-doing.  This wrong-doing is told in flashback, which initially introduces a playful kind of friendship between Jenna and Max Townsend (played by Sherlock‘s own Benedict Cumberbatch).  They are both ace pilots with egos that convince them they’re better than the other.  A challenge is soon forthcoming, with somewhat dubious rewards for whichever of them wins.

Jenna and Max effectively “steal” two shuttles and race each other through an asteroid field.  Normally the computers would take care of avoiding collisions but, to prove themselves the better pilot, they run with computers deactivated.  Forward shields take care of minor collisions, but only against dust.  If the dust is disguising something heavier, the consequence of collision could be very dangerous indeed, hence the need to be able to avoid them in flight.

Both stealing the shuttles and playing flight-and-dare through the asteroid field are highly illegal activities and so, when they’re detected by security forces, Jenna races back to get home first so that she can blame everything on Max.  However, she doesn’t take Max’s cunning into mind, and he is able to delay her.  Nevertheless, once she returns to base, he claims to have taken the blame already.

Back in the present, Jenna’s interrogation ends with Max entering the interview room – only now he claims to be a Federation Agent!  The story ends on that cliff-hanger, with the second story on the disc – entitled The Trial – presumably continuing on from this.

Unlike the previous “Cally” stories, Blood & Earth and Flag & Flame, this story is much easier to listen to.  Having one female and one male character in the primary roles, there’s never any doubt who’s saying what to whom.  The adventure itself begins fairly slowly and I felt an initial detached lack of interest in the characters.  Without this Jenna being TV’s Jenna, and Max not being anyone I was interested in, their silly banter of dubious content was of very little interest.  Add that to not knowing what the interrogation is all about and you’re left with very little to interest you.

That being said, if you stick with it until at least the mid-point, once the build up to the “race” begins, and the race itself, the adventure starts to sparkle.  The dubious banter becomes playful flirting, which contrasts nicely with the danger of the “dust run”, and leads us into the excellently surprising cliff-hanger.

So, whilst this may not be the best story in the range, it’s certainly a huge improvement over the previous two.  All credit to the two primary actors – neither Carrie Dobro nor Benedict Cumberbatch sound particularly like their more familiar characters.

One to recommend, dependent on the next adventure.