Admiral Sir James "Bongo" Tranter was the Admiral of the Fleet who oversaw Project: Wildfire at the Mimas test base.

When his top test pilot, Ace Rimmer, returned from a successful record-breaking flight, he headed for the admiral's office. After flirting with the admiral's secretary, Mellie, Ace reported for debriefing.

The admiral was a middle aged man with uncontrollable hair and bushy eyebrows. He wore the uniform of a Space Corps Admiral, but spoke identically to the mechanoid Kryten. Ace and Bongo obviously knew each other well enough to be comfortable using their nicknames. Bongo joked that he suspected Ace would be back when he saw that the price of rubbers had gone up.

Bongo gave Ace a briefing about the dimension crossing ship built by his engineers. Ace volunteered immediately to go on a one-way mission into the multiverse, despite the dangers. Bongo then told Ace in an embarassed tone that he would be in his quarters at lunchtime, covered in taramasalata. Ace was surprised, since Bongo had been happily married for 35 years, but Ace had turned his head. Ace politely declined and Bongo understood, declaring "What a guy".

Bongo later stood beside Mellie, Spanners and the Padre to see Ace off in the dimension ship, Wildfire (RD: Dimension Jump).

In the novel Backwards, Bongo is something of a drunk and less of a friend to Ace. He is still a good man and, due to a clerical error, is allowed to retire on full pay.

Behind the scenesEdit

The relationship between Ace and Bongo is a parody of that between James Bond and his superior, M.