The Ghost Ship

The SilverHawks chase a Mob smuggling truck so weighed down with limbo gold that the smugglers have to dump the cargo to get away. The SilverHawks let them go to face Mon*Star and collect the gold. Mon*Star is furious and wants Hawk Haven destroyed, but his henchmen remind him it is a tough nut to crack, with a laser-proof dome, security scanners everywhere and Tally-Hawk. It is Yes-Man who comes up with the plan: repair an old wreck, hide a couple of Mob strongmen in a secret compartment, and leave it where the SilverHawks will find it and tow it home.

Tally-Hawk picks up an old Starfire battle cruiser that does not answer Hawk Haven's hails, and Stargazer sends Quicksilver to check out what may be a ghost ship. Quicksilver searches the cockpit, finds nothing, and reports the ship empty, while Mumbo Jumbo and Hardware, hidden aboard, watch him walk into their trap. The Starfire is towed back to Hawk Haven, and Stargazer mentions that he served on one as a rookie.

Once inside, the Mob breaks out and takes Stargazer and Quicksilver by surprise. Hardware has brought a portable booster rocket to blast Hawk Haven out of Limbo, and he forces Stargazer to tell the returning Mirage that everything is fine and to come on home. The team sees through it, and the Steel twins call a play for a sneak attack. Mumbo Jumbo and Buzz-Saw escape and leave Hardware to take the heat, a shot from the Copper Kidd settles it, and Hardware is captured.

Stargazer then uses the prisoner as bait. Hardware calls Mon*Star to report that the plan has worked and invites him to watch Hawk Haven blown away, and Mon*Star transforms and rides out on Sky-Runner, only to be greeted by the SilverHawks and driven off. Afterwards Stargazer, teased for hiding his flying talents, confesses his old nickname: Barnstorming Burt.

Mon*star uses a Trojan Horse to get inside Silverhawk headquarters.

Quicksilver: "This ship is as empty as a burned-out asteroid."

Commander Stargazer: "They call me Barnstorming Burt."

"My plan, Mon*Star?"

Everybody in "The Ghost Ship" underestimates something old or something small, and most of them turn out to be wrong. Chris Trengove's script starts with the Mob losing a shipment of limbo gold and Mon*Star demanding revenge, and it could have gone the usual way, with the boss barking orders at his lieutenants. Instead the idea comes from the smallest member of the Mob. When Yes-Man offers a plan, Mon*Star's astonishment tells you how often that happens, and the plan he mocks is a good one: dig out an old wreck, hide a couple of Mob strongmen in it, and let the SilverHawks tow it home themselves.[1]

The Mob underestimates Yes-Man until the plan is in trouble, at which point it is suddenly his again;[2] the SilverHawks underestimate the wreck; and his own team underestimates the old man at the desk. When the Starfire comes in on a laser line he goes misty over the ship ("I served on a Starfire when I was a rookie, you know"), and Quicksilver's surprise at how old that makes the Commander is the setup for the final joke.

The Trojan horse is the weakness. The Mob's own briefing describes Hawk Haven as a fortress with a laser-proof dome and scanners everywhere, and yet the one search the ghost ship gets is Quicksilver's walk through the cockpit, ending in "This ship is as empty as a burned-out asteroid." Nobody scans the wreck before it is inside the base. The episode needs the heroes to be fooled, and in twenty-two minutes there is no room for a better search that the Mob outwits, so the SilverHawks are careless for a scene.

The standout comes after the ambush. With Hardware holding the switch on a portable booster rocket, Stargazer is made to tell the Mirage that all is well and to come on home, and the Mirage hears the trouble in it. The Steel twins then answer the crisis with a football call, play number 34B, and a shot from the Copper Kidd settles the fight.[3] The victory is tidy, but the episode is not finished with it: "Two got away, but score one for us. We got Hardware," says one of the team, and the complaint that Mon*Star is still safe in his fortress becomes the cue for a second trap, with the captured Hardware as the bait. Mon*Star's arrival on Sky-Runner, the armoured squid lit up in electric blue against the stars, is the one big piece of spectacle in the episode. He rides it happily straight into the trap.

The team has watched the Commander at work and admits they thought he only knew how to drive a desk, and Stargazer confesses his nickname from the old days of flying ships like the Starfire: "They call me Barnstorming Burt." Nobody laughs at his flying after this, and the team settles for laughing at the nickname instead. This one is a lot of fun!

1 ^ The teaser credits the plan to Hardware; in the episode it is Yes-Man's idea, and Hardware leads the attack force.

2 ^ While he waits to hear from Hardware, Mon*Star tells Yes-Man that something has gone wrong with "your plan", and gets back "My plan, Mon*Star?" Yes-Man hands it straight back.

3 ^ The Steel twins' taste for football calls also turns up in Operation Big Freeze, where Steelheart offers to come up with a big play.

1. The episode opens with the SilverHawks forcing a Mob smuggling truck to dump a shipment of limbo gold, which they return to its owner.
2. The ghost ship is an old Starfire battle cruiser, picked up by Tally-Hawk on the space camera; Stargazer says he served on a Starfire as a rookie.
3. The Trojan-horse plan is Yes-Man's, although the teaser credits it to Hardware, who leads the attack force.
4. The Steel twins call play number 34B, a sneak attack, echoing Steelheart's offer of a big play in Operation Big Freeze.
5. Hardware, who got away at the end of The Hardware Trap - Part II, is captured again here and used as bait for Mon*Star.
6. Mumbo Jumbo and Buzz-Saw are the two who get away, leaving Hardware behind to take the heat.
7. Stargazer's old piloting nickname is Barnstorming Burt, and the team suggests he stick with Commander Stargazer.
8. Bluegrass's closing quiz covers Earth's land masses and hemispheres, and the Copper Kidd finishes on 18 points.

3 names enter the series in this episode.

• Smuggling Space Truck
• Star-Fire Battle Cruiser
• Portable Booster Rocket

Appearance lists compiled from the episode articles on the ThunderCats wiki, checked against this site's encyclopedia. Names we have no entry for are shown without a link rather than left out.