Diary Entry One
Lt. Samuel Martin
SG Regiment 2

Sometimes life is funny.  I joined up because my father was in the Marines, and his father was in the Army.  I was supposed to become a military man.  Don’t get me wrong--I'm big on serving my country and was excited to join--but I picked the Air Force because I didn’t think all that running around shooting suited me.  I just couldn’t picture myself storming a beach or hiding in a fox hole waiting to get shot.

I remember the test we all took.  So many science questions (my favorite subject in school).  And those silly tests in that oven, and the freezer, and being thrown into water.  We all thought it was some kind of advanced pilot program, to see which of us would be part of a new aircraft team.  Man, were we clueless!

I guess they liked my scores.  They never told me what I got, but about a week after the tests, I’m in the back of a truck, being taken to this mountain in Colorado, and suddenly I’m in the Stargate program.  I’m training with a P90 (sweet little gun), grenade launchers, and some strange things I didn’t know we had.  But I’m training in this big cement hole in the ground.  Not a firing range or any place I could ever imagine needing to go in the Air Force.

Then they show me the Stargate.  Everyone’s standing there, staring at this big giant metal ring.  Kinda silly, to be honest.  Just a big, strange, old-timey looking artifact.  Until the little guy behind the window starts calling out something about chevrons.  Suddenly the ground starts shaking and the thing spins and explodes in our faces, leaving a big pool in the middle.  And they’re telling us to go up the ramp and walk through it!

So, here I am.  I joined the Air Force because I didn’t think I had what it took to storm enemy beaches.  And what am I doing?  Jumping through a metal ring that makes you feel like you’ve been squished by a giant block of ice, then shot out the other side with your stomach light years behind, flying to catch up.  And people are shooting at me all the time with light beams! And you know what?  I love it!

I guess I do have what it takes, after all.  Maybe it’s just in my family’s genes. 

I don’t know what my father and his father felt, facing the enemy on some distant shore.  But I do know that when I do it, the enemy isn’t human, and the distant shore has three moons orbiting it, and the air always smells funny.  And there are always mosquitoes… or strange things that do the job of mosquitoes.  I guess everywhere in the universe, there are always parasites.  And we’re the guys they send to deal with them.

Diary Entry Two
Lt. Samuel Martin
SG Regiment 2

I never thought we’d get out of that sand-blasted hell hole alive! 

It started as a routine, extremely hot, extremely boring recon of an old naquadah mine on the planet Amarna.  We set up a base in this old temple the gate was located in, since the SGC had ordered us to prepare for a full and fast mining operation.  The plan was to do a demo on the mine, collect all the naquadah we could, then rig some generator bombs in case the System Lords showed up in force and we had to abandon the place.  At least they wouldn’t get the high grade stuff.

Damn snake heads showed up right as we finished our initial recon.  They had the gate locked down, and were swarming all over the temple by the time we got there, killing everything in sight.  Let me tell you, nothing gets your attention faster than realizing there are Ashrak hidden in dark corridors.  At least my P90 makes short work of them.  I got cut a few times, but never took it in the back for the long count.

We held our own, keeping the little base we’d set up clear of them, but in the end, all we could do was fight our way to the gate and escape through it when it reset.  We lost a lot of good souls back there, and lost the mine to the System Lords.

I think I heard one of the Generals in the hall mentioning sending the Daedalus there, to vaporize the mine.  I’m getting tired of that part of the war.  The mine will take half the planet with it, when it goes critical.  At least it’s uninhabited.  Except for the mosquitoes, or whatever they’re called on that planet. How the heck do mosquitoes live in the desert? 

Diary Entry Three
First Lieutenant Samuel Martin
SG Regiment 2

I’ve been to a lot of remarkable worlds so far. Some terrible. Some so beautiful they cannot possibly be true. But Piramess has to take the cake.

I came here a year ago, with an advanced scout unit. The civilization on this world developed a weather control system, that carved out beautiful, comfortable environments from the cold, ice locked world around. A bit like being in the Alps, but comfortable in the warm ski loft atop the mountain.

I guess, when you’re attached to a home, you do just about anything to keep it livable. Me, I’d simply use the stargate to move to another, warmer world, if mine was choked in ice like theirs. But, they chose to change the environment enough to stay there. Who am I to argue?

Trouble is, technology that can carve a warm bubble for cities and farms out of a frozen wasteland can also dry up lush wetlands, or turn a park into a desert. Just the thing the snake heads wouldn’t mind getting their hands on.

So, that’s how I found myself back on Piramess. This time, ferried in by cloaked transport since the gate was hit in the System Lord’s initial attack.

Our mission was simple on paper. Find and transport the backup crystals used to power the planetary defenses, and reactivate those systems, driving the System Lords out of orbit, and breaking their blockade.

Trouble is, the data cores for the weather control device were located in the same place. Need to have a talk with their city planners!

The only good thing about this mission was, with the weather control system not functioning, it was too damn cold for the mosquitoes. Of course, there’s a strange little ice mite, kinda like a flea, that causes a rash that will make a grown man cry.

Diary Entry Four
First Lieutenant Samuel Martin
SG Regiment 2

I’ve attended the briefings about previous assaults on the SGC, and done the training.  Gas attacks.  Energy weapons directed at the IRIS.  Radiation.  Even what to do if an Asteroid is aimed at Earth. None of that ever prepared us for the total collapse of what we thought was a strong security system.

It started with one of our survey teams, searching for potential settlement locations on a strategically unimportant world with a well guarded gate.  Somehow, the System Lords captured that entire team, without anyone getting word, and faked their check-ins until they got the GDO code from them.  I don’t even want to think about how they did that.

During their scheduled return to the SGC, one of them was sent through with some kind of strange EMP device attached to him.  Before he could warn us, there was a massive pulse of energy and all our systems went down.

Lucky for me, I was actually in a chow line, several floors above, and didn’t get the brunt of it.  People actually in the gate room and control room didn’t survive.  Most everyone else within several floors was knocked out.  And our TER sensors, IRIS control, and most other systems went fubar.

By the time the lockdown happened, the place was swarming with snake heads and their Jaffa.  We began gathering at the rear armory on the main gate level to push them out or, failing that, manually activate the failsafe, since their pulse wiped out the computers and even the automatic trigger. 

One way or another, they weren’t getting farther than the gate level.

There wasn’t time to deal with the injured or unconscious.  They poured out of the gate knowing exactly what they wanted, and where to go for it.  I found out later one of the survey team members was actually turned into a host, which gave them all the information they needed.  But they tortured the others anyway.

Many of my team fought to keep control of the failsafe, after transferring power and emergency backup computer control.  I spent a good bit of my energy trying to get the damn IRIS back online in the control room.  Turns out, the snakes were after the same thing, trying to lock out all the IRIS controls. 

I’ve been on a lot of assaults.  I’ve been trapped in an old cargo ship’s hold with two angry Ashraks.  I’ve fought my way into and out of Goa’uld strongholds.  In all of that, I don’t remember fighting as hard, or being as afraid, as when I was fighting in my own blasted base. 

Supposedly the security breach has been fixed.  Supposedly this can’t ever happen again.  I don’t know, but I’ll never walk these halls the same way, again. 

Diary Entry Five
First Lieutenant Samuel Martin
SG Regiment 2

It seems as if this war is going to go on forever. We’ve won some key victories, cut off some important supply lines, and freed millions of enslaved people, and yet the System Lords seem to have only accelerated their campaign.

After the System Lords attempt to take the SGC, several other key locations were dealt with by our fleet, and we were sent on what we assumed would be a relatively peaceful diplomatic and tech gathering mission. I, for one, didn’t expect any enemy contact. Nor did I expect the insanity that followed.

The planet is called Leonops. Some dead Goa’uld who was a fake Egyptian god, and then also a South American god, set up this contest, or trial on Leonops. People would be locked in an arena, and fight to the death, and then be resurrected to fight again. Real sick. Naturally, HQ wants the resurrection tech, and so off we go to Leonops.

When we came through the gate I was struck with how well preserved everything was. The city was hundreds of years old, and the Goa’uld Mahes had been long dead, but we arrived into a bustling marketplace.

I suppose I should have figured out what was happening when the people started fleeing. In fact, I’d only just stepped through the gate when a lady pushing a cart stared at me for a moment, dropped her goods, and ran, grabbing two children on her way. In seconds, the whole courtyard was empty.

We set up a perimeter, and tried to dial the gate to contact Earth, but the DHD seemed to be offline. Maybe that was what spooked everyone? Maybe they’d never seen the gate actually work? Wouldn’t be the first time.

Before we could start to explore, however, we got a contact warning on our monitors, and suddenly there was an Al’kesh overhead, and we could hear ring transporters activating in several locations around us. We were in a fight before we’d even really figured out where we were, or what was going on.

After the first shots were fired, we heard the sound of stones falling, and there was a crackle in the air, and smell of ozone that told us a force field had slapped down over the courtyard. In fact, the Al’kesh tried to make a strafing run on us, in the middle of the courtyard, and almost was blown up by it’s own bombs, as they exploded on the invisible force field just feet below its flight path.

We were trapped. The gate didn’t work, and there was no way out of the courtyard, and the place was now crawling with System Lords.

Fortunately, the lockdown was as surprising to the System Lords, as it was to us. They managed only to land matching numbers to ours, and I’ve never been worried about them in a fair fight. But, something was wrong. All around us you could feel a tingle on your skin, as if something unpleasant was building up. The bottom of the court was full of water, and walking around in it gave the sensation of your teeth being drilled. I’ve never felt anything like it. But nobody seemed to be getting sick, or anything.

I guess we triggered this ancient device. Who knew the gate, itself was the power source for the resurrection device, or that we’d gate into the arena, or that gunfire would trigger it? Well, the peasants knew, that’s for sure. They made it to the exits before they closed down.

It took a while to build up, and we were busy fighting the System Lords while all this happened. I know Major Reaves was busy trying to scan everything, while also covering us, and trying not to get killed. The rest of us were pretty oblivious to what was happening. At least, until I died.

We’d been fighting for a while, and had pretty much beaten the System Lords, when the gate started to build up with some energy, some kind of strange muffled horn sounded, and suddenly we were in a basement room, covered by force fields. The fields dropped, and we stepped out, back into the courtyard. I don’t know why I wasn’t paying attention. I’m usually spending more time checking my six, than looking in front, but this time, I walked right into it. An Ashrak caught me square between the shoulder blades. I felt my heart explode, and saw her blade sticking out of my chest before I passed out, figuring I was done.

The next thing I knew, I was back in that little room, inside the force fields, with my entire team. Everyone was looking surprised, and a quick check confirmed that nearly all of them had been killed. Then the force field dropped, and we were again sent out into the courtyard, and again met the System Lords.

I don’t know how many times this happened. Sometimes I survived, sometimes I died, but each time, when only one was left, or enough time passed for the gate to build up to some kind of overload, there was a wave of energy that passed over the entire courtyard, and there we were, back behind the force fields, in the basement.

I was getting really sick of it all. I think the System Lords were, too. I even sat out a round, just walking out and screaming for someone to shoot me (they obliged). But, in the end, I guess instinct took over, and we started fighting harder than ever.

And, then, it was over. I guess we won, because when it was finished, we were resurrected, but when we stepped out, the System Lords were gone. A cursory check showed that the DHD actually worked, and we were able to dial home and report, and the science team managed to get the information we came for.