Last night saw the Big Push — the small task force, led by Pegasus, made their move to liberate both Aquaria and Libran. We started in media res with “Fists” — one of the PCs who has risen to wing commander of the task force — in her viper, caught in a flat spin in the clouds over Aquaria while a battle rages around her. She has to punch out, and as she falls out of the cloud deck, we can see the burning city of Kyros, the forests around it toppled and on fire, contrails, smoke, and dust from the orbital bombardment that preceded the assault on the Cylon stronghold. She is falling toward the frigid ocean to the east and desperately trying to get her chute to turn away from the water…

We then jumped back to show some of the preparation — on Aquaria, the other PC, Commander Oscari, is organizing the assault. We followed the long slog from The Complex, a miles long series of caverns under the Alhous Mountains which once housed the Aquarian HQ for the Fist Cylon War, and which has thousands of refugees living underground, to the outskirts of Kyros. Along the way, they had to test against the cold and fatigue. They lose people on the way to the elements, dropping them at the various woodland cabins, picking up other volunteers along the way. One vignette, they find a large farm that was the headquarters for a hundreds strong resistance cell burned to the ground.

Meanwhile, the fleet finally gets their ships in order, and the 170 or so vipers are ready for the fray. With Pegasus, the post-war build Columiba-class Ares to provide high orbit protection from any Cylon response, and the Berzerk-class Hecate, and the Erinyes-class Aegis tasked with orbital bombardment of the two main bases of operations on Aquaria, they jump out from Ragnar to their target. As they do, their old armed tender Demosthenes and the exploration ship Striker jump to Libran on a suicide mission — they are going to use the ships to destroy the Cylon positions on Libran.

The bombardment goes swimmingly, with the Cylon airbase at Kyros destroyed quickly enough that only a squadron or two of the raiders get airborne. They hit the large industrial park where the Cylons are barracked and their construction facilities are located, smashing them flat. Oscari leads the 2500 man strong assault into the city, only to receive the krypter call from Fists. As the character has a fatherly connection to her, he leaves the assault in the hands of his capable brigade commanders and rushes to save her from any Cylon attack.

This led to a fight with centurions near one of the only standing skyscrapers that saw a few injuries, but they rescue Fists and try to get back to the main force, only to be cut off by a four-story high Decurion tank (go here for the stats.) The 40mm autocannons of the tank make short work of the entire street, kill six of their ten people, but they were able to call in air support to make good their escape.

Plot points were flying fast and plentifully in this episode. Fists got injured a few times, the commander was suffering from the cold with his Flaw of Chronic Injury from a viper crash a decade ago.

Eventually, they work their way back to the lines and take part in a raid on the “puppet factory”, where they think the Cylons are making their creepy new IL-Series cyborg — a more “Terminator”-esque creature than the skin jobs from the show. We left off with them assaulting the seemingly empty, half-destroyed facility, only to be confronted with something “horrifying.”

Next week, we should see the conclusion of this battle, and depending on how things go, maybe even the Pegasus storyline.