"Hijack in Space" Battlestar Galactica Annual 1978 (Grandreams) Author Unknown Artist Unknown

One of the fleet's ships suddenly pulls out, hijacked by an insane captain.

Story Summary

On the bridge of the Galactica, Athena suddenly reports that passenger liner Astraia is peeling away from the fleet. Opening communications, they reach the ship's communications officer, Garika. He informs them that Captain Targ has gone crazy and thinks he can take the ship to Sansar and make peace with the Cylons. Adama doesn't want to fire on the ship due to the presence of civilians living aboard.

He sends Apollo and Starbuck in a shuttle to masquerade as two renegades named Grovar and Birtal who want to join them. Targ allows them to land in docking bay four. When they land and disembark, the two men sent to meet them recognize the two warriors and a firefight ensues, with Targ's men killed. The two warriors then split up, Starbuck to release the civilians likely being held in the cargo hold and gather some of them for the fight with the mutineers and Apollo to confront Targ on the bridge.

Apollo surprises Targ and his minimal bridge crew by coming up the back elevator instead of the forward one and a firefight ensues. When Starbuck and his civilian volunteers arrive via the forward elevator, the tide is sealed against Targ, who tries to trigger the engines to self-destruct, so Apollo is forced to shoot and kill him.

THE END

Didja Know?

This story appeared in the British Battlestar Galactica Annual 1978, a book of short stories, articles and games all about BSG, geared towards kids.

Notes from the BSG Chronology

Captain Targ of the Astraia goes crazy and decides to hijack his ship and take it to Sansar to surrender to the Cylons. Sansar is not mentioned in any other BSG story, but it seems to be known of among the Colonial officers here, so it seems reasonable to assume it is somewhat close to the Colonies, suggesting this story takes place shortly after "Deathtrap", when the fleet was still in the vicinity.

Didja Notice?

Page 1 of the story tells us that very few passenger-liners survived the Cylon attack on the Colonies; the Astraia is one that did. Page 2 tells us the ship currently carries over 100 civilians of the fleet. "Astraia" is Greek for "star".

On page 1, Garika tells Commander Adama that Captain Targ thinks he can take the Astraia to Sansar and make peace with the Cylons if they see that the ship is unarmed. But then on page 3 of the story, Starbuck comments that he's worried about his and Apollo's approach in the shuttle because the Astraia is an armed ship! In fact, Targ even fires a warning shot at them from the Astraia! If he thinks the ship unarmed, I guess Captain Targ really is crazy.

The shuttle lands in docking bay four of the Astraia. That would imply that there are at least three other bays. Four docking bays on a passenger liner that carries fewer than 200 passengers seems like an awful lot!

Page 4 of the story describes Starbuck as holding a gun in each hand as he fires at Targ's men. But the accompanying illustration on that page depicts him with just one.