Jack Fisk

Commander Jack Fisk was a senior officer of the battlestar Pegasus who survived the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. Promoted to Executive Officer after the Fall and later to command of the ship itself, he became deeply enmeshed in the fleet's black market, and that is what got him killed. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; "Resurrection Ship, Part II"; "Black Market")

Survival and promotion#

At the time of the Cylon attack on the Twelve Worlds, Fisk served in the CIC of Pegasus, a Mercury-class battlestar. The ship was docked at the shipyards over Scorpia for a refit, and Fisk was aboard when the Cylons attacked, escaping the destruction of the shipyards. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

In the days after the Fall, Fisk was promoted to Colonel and Executive Officer when Rear Admiral Helena Cain shot Colonel Belzen in front of the crew for refusing to send Pegasus's outnumbered Vipers against a Cylon communications relay. Shaken, Fisk never contradicted the admiral and ordered the attack at once. Later, Pegasus came across a flotilla of civilian ships that had escaped the Fall. Fisk and Lieutenant Kendra Shaw led a Marine team onto the Scylla to strip it of useful parts and take skilled civilians. When the passengers refused, Cain ordered that the family of anyone who resisted be shot, and as Fisk and the Marines faltered, Shaw shot a woman in the head, setting off gunfire that killed nine more. The ships and the civilians judged of no use were then left behind. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Contact with Galactica#

Several months after the attack, Pegasus made contact with Galactica and its own refugee fleet. Early on there were crew transfers and supply runs, and Fisk used the chance to befriend Galactica's Executive Officer, Colonel Saul Tigh. Over drinks he told Tigh about the boarding of the civilian ship, then passed it off as a joke when he saw how shocked Tigh was. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

Relations between the two ships soured rapidly, the final straw being the killing of Lieutenant Alastair Thorne by two Galactica crewmembers, Lieutenant Karl Agathon and Chief Galen Tyrol, as he tried to rape the Cylon prisoner Sharon. Cain sentenced the two to death, a verdict put on hold when both warships prepared to launch Vipers against one another. When two Pegasus specialists beat the prisoners in the brig, Fisk broke it up and warned them about the penalties for hitting an officer, but he told Agathon and Tyrol he owed Thorne his life and dismissed their defence with the line that you can't rape a machine. Cain then ordered Fisk to take a Marine team aboard Galactica during the attack on a Cylon Resurrection Ship, ready to kill William Adama and his senior staff on her signal. After the battle, Cain chose not to give the order. Soon afterward, she was murdered by Gina Inviere, a Cylon prisoner. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; "Resurrection Ship, Part I"; "Resurrection Ship, Part II")

Command and the black market#

Newly promoted to Commander and appointed commanding officer of Pegasus, Fisk got involved in the Fleet's black market, using the ship to move black market cargo, including fresh Caprican cigars for Vice President Gaius Baltar, in return for benefits from the black market boss Phelan, who ran his operation from the Prometheus. His place in the market proved his undoing. When Fisk tried to force Phelan to renegotiate for a bigger cut, Phelan had him garroted in his own quarters aboard Pegasus. (Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part II"; "Black Market")