Diary Entry One
Captain Julia Reaves
SG Regiment 2

I never dreamed, in those last years at MIT, that something like the Stargate even existed, or that I’d get to travel to other worlds and work on technology light years beyond what I’d originally studied in college. 

When I graduated, I thought I was the luckiest person in the universe when I got accepted to the Large Hadron Collider experiment.  Then that strange, handsome Air Force General showed up.  I remember, I thought it was going to be another of those “your country needs you,” pitches.  Which I appreciate, but thought my work at the LHC would be the most important thing I could do for country and kin.  He didn’t say that, though.  He said, “Your planet needs you.”

I was one of the lucky ones out of the more recent recruits to the SGC.  I got to spend two glorious years traveling the galaxy, doing what I’ve trained my life for--research, science, and discovery.  Two wonderful years before the System Lords resurfaced. And attacked.

Now, though I’ve had more schooling than most PhDs, and can build a Naqada reactor out of a Chevy engine block and some spare wire, I’m no longer doing research.  Instead, I’m managing Asgard weapons tech, researching and exploiting symbiote virus delivery, and using this little pocket device that’s got more power than the LHC I originally thought would be my life’s work, to beam weapons in from orbit so the Goa'uld bastards can be sent back to oblivion.

I didn’t want to be a soldier.  I don’t want to be a soldier.  But if these brain worms want to take over the galaxy, they’re going to have to go through me and my guys.  And I wish them luck.

Diary Entry Two
Captain Julia Reaves
SG Regiment 2

Desert planets are the worst! Hot! Sand gets in everything. It's hot. Always too bright. Did I mention it's hot?

I actually was looking forward to this mission, despite the heat. We'd no indication the System Lords even remembered this place. A chance to do a little research. And I've been gathering data on naquadah deposits for a geologist in SG Regiment 7, who never seems to get sent to any place with the stuff. My CADS gives me a good stratification map of the underground layers. Actually a feature he had included in the device.

The mission went well. We established a forward base in the temple, and completed our initial survey of the mine. When we returned to the temple, the plan was to dial home and have them send a mining operations team through.

The System Lords had other plans, though. They'd arrived while we were out at the mine, and from what I was able to see in the chaos as we finally took the gate room, it looks like their Ashraks took out our guards. Poor guys didn't stand a chance. It was a mistake to leave a group of greenies there; won't do that again.

They were everywhere in the temple. Ashraks hidden in the shadows. System Lords grabbing you from behind fallen boulders. Jaffa pinning us down in the corridors. If we hadn't managed to get turrets down to hold our ground quickly, we'd never have been able to start pushing forward. But, after what seemed like an eternity, we managed to take the gate and dial home.

I don't know how many we killed. I think I melted two barrels on my cannons, and the air was thick with nanites from our Sabins. I'm sure my hearing is toast from all that gunfire inside the temple. They never tell you about that in the movies.

In the end, we lost the mine, but made it out alive. Most of us, anyway.

Diary Entry Three
Major Julia Reaves
SG Regiment 2

This was my first promotion due to combat action. I’m not sure if it was truly a reflection of my performance at Amarna, or just a consolation for having made it out alive. But, what I’ll forever remember is the brief ceremony to award me with my oak leaves.

I’d barely been pinned when the gate was dialed, and the General informed my team of our next mission. In fact, I changed so fast out of my dress blues, I still had the damn hose on under my BDU when I stepped through the gate. Things never ride up in a conference room… but try sitting on the floor of a cargo ship for several hours. And I’m convinced the nylon reacts differently than everything else to the ring transporter beam, putting the stockings down in a slightly different place than the rest of me.

Personal problems aside, the mission was straightforward, and urgent. System Lord teams had assaulted Piramess, a nice little oasis of warm temples, kept habitable on an ice locked planet by an Ancient tech weather control system. Guess the System Lords figured they could weaponize the thing, and that was worth killing monks and destroying temples.

They’d blockaded the world, and disabled the gate, so our only way in was by cloaked transport.

We managed to get in undetected, and immediately set up a defensive perimeter in the main building that housed the planetary defense controls. I guess the System Lords had snuck in, and disabled them, so our team began rounding up the required crystals to reactivate it, and push back the System Lords.

Trouble was, the monks had chosen that building to house the data crystals for the weather control system, so no sooner had we shown up, than the place was crawling with snake heads. At least they didn’t expect us.

I didn’t see much of the fight outside. I spent most of my time defending the data crystals and our team as they returned with the power cores for the defense network. Another support role mission, for me, but I tell you, there’s never a slow moment with intent Ashrak on the prowl. I’m working with some of our guys back at SGC on a pulse system to kill that cloak, but so far, no success. In the meantime, we light them up whenever we can find them, and my turrets make short work of them.

In the end, we got what we came for, got the planet’s defenses online, pushing the System Lords off the planet, and their ships out of orbit. I don’t think they got enough data on the weather device to build a weapon. I hope not, anyway.

Another day here, and the Daedalus should return with a fresh gate to replace the one destroyed by the System Lords, and we can get out of here. The weather device has been running non stop for the last 24 hours, and the environment near the temples has almost returned to the warmth and comfort I remember the last time I was here a few years back.

Can’t wait to get back home, and out of these hose!

Diary Entry Four
Major Julia Reaves
SG Regiment 2

The System Lords invaded the SGC last night.  I wasn’t really sure how it happened.  One of our Regiment’s soldiers, Martin, is brilliant at piecing together all the little tidbits and no comment hints the higher ups drop, and figuring it out.  I’ll ask him, later.  All I know is one minute I was in the lab with Barskey and Dewer, and the next, I’m on the floor with a splitting headache, and someone’s screaming for SGR-2 to get to the rear armory, level 28.

I actually thought, at first, that it was our little EMP grenade experiment.  I’ve been trying to get a grenade that will effect Goa’uld shields and Ashrak cloaks perfected, and we’ve twice fried computers in neighboring labs, which is why they moved us to level 26 in the rear.  But it was some kind of device a million times worse that the Goa’uld sent through the gate.

I remember while throwing my gear on in automatic training mode, I was listening to a couple of the guys wondering out loud why the System Lords would even invade through the gate since they’d have to fight their way out of the most heavily defended mountain and risk the failsafe.  But invasion isn’t what they’d accomplish through the gate.  They’re after the chair, and possibly our gate address library.  We’ve got the full Ancient’s gate library in our computers, even though we’ve not drift corrected all of those addresses yet.  That’s got to be of huge value to them.  And the Antarctica  defense chair was moved here recently for testing.  Without it, we’ve no way to activate the defenses there, leaving Earth vulnerable to attack from orbit.  Then one of the guys said something about it being “pants,” while I was fastening my trousers, and I was snapped back into reality.

Whatever their reason, the invasion was brilliant, and cruel.  But I don’t think they realized how many of us would be on base, and how quickly we could mobilize down on 28.  Had we been a bit slower they’d have had what they were after without trouble.

As it was I was able to establish a good base at the main power distribution system in the old tank room and we kept them from gaining control of the gateroom’s library computer and kept control of the failsafe.  Good thing, too.  I’ve no real plans to be vaporized any time soon. 

I know they’re not getting back that way, again.  But I imagine they’ll try again, somehow.  Whichever it was they were after, or even something I’ve not thought of, they committed a lot of resources to it.  It must be important.

Diary Entry Five
Major Julia Reaves
SG Regiment 2

I was really excited about Leonops. Reading the briefings months before we actually found the planet, the Court of Judgment Mahes created was truly unique, and his application of the healing technologies appeared free of the sarcophagus’ flaws, and able to restore someone no matter the level of damage. Imagine a device like an airport metal detector that you walk through and bingo, you’re totally healthy. Or a reset button for a battle, that instantly resurrects all your troops. Pretty cool.

It sounded cool, in the briefing. But experiencing it firsthand, in the manner that maniac Mahes intended, that wasn’t so cool.

I should have known better, the minute we got there, and people started running away. In fact, if I’d sent one of the new floating MALP units ahead, I could have probably picked up the energy field the device was projecting even before the cycle started, and we’d have taken a ship to that world, and dropped in outside the arena. Oh, well. If wishes were horses…

Now I know what it’s like to die by Ashrak, over and over again. I can tell you from direct experience that a staff blast to the back is about the most painful experience you can have, while a blast to the face is painless and quick. And, now, if I even hear that cursed sound of the Goa’uld ribbon device, my head starts to pound and I swear I can feel the blood flowing out of my ears and nose in anticipation of the lovely boiling effect it has.

My only consolation is that those System Lords know what it’s like to die from my poison, turrets and 9mm, over and over again. They felt the sting of our sniper rifles and P-90s, and disarticulation from grenade launchers again, and again. I only wish I knew what happened to them. Their Al’kesh flew off shortly after the match ended, which seemed unlike them.

Leonops seemed like an interesting world. When our guys figure out how to disable the device, permanently, I’d like to go back. In the meantime, I’ve got a mountain of data on that device to pour through. I think I can already see some applications for our battlefield healing devices. And the civilian treatment applications are astounding. I just hope, in the future, gains like that don’t require as much pain. Don’t mess with your head quite so bad. I keep telling myself I’m a rational scientist, and can remain detached. But I’ve been having night terrors, lately. I’m afraid to report them, because I don’t want to be pulled from active duty. And I know I’m not the only one.