Author's Notes: This one…this is the one. If I'd never managed to get another story written, this one would have been enough. It ran through my head for months, if not years, before I got brave enough to tackle it. It was hard fought, and I'm still inordinately pleased with it. I've tried breaking it into chapters, but it was written as one long piece and that's what still feels right to me…hopefully the breaks work.

Disclaimer: Purely for fan purposes; no copyright infringement intended.

The White Sands of Hakter

The planet Hakter's name could be roughly translated 'Celebration of Life'. For the Standers, 'Place of Death' would have been more appropriate. Its white, sandy beaches turned pink with their blood. According to plan, virtually all the Aschen in the galaxy had been forced together into one huge group on Hakter. Unfortunately, the intel had far underestimated the numbers that would entail. Far superior to the Stander Army in men, weapons, technology, and resources, they almost brought the Standers' Rebellion to its knees at Hakter. But, the Standers struggled on to finish their objective: the enemy were driven on to the next battlefield.

The Aschen dominated fifty-one planets in the galaxy. The battle plan called for systematically driving them from planet to planet, ever pushing them closer to the galaxy's edge. It required coordinated and synchronized attacks on the first several worlds, followed almost immediately with similar attacks on the next to force the Aschen from one world to the next and on from there before they had time to regroup and put up an organized defense. Each strike was engineered to force the Aschen ever closer to the defense web placed at the galaxy's rim. Once the Aschen could be driven past it, the web would be activated. With a hope and a prayer, it would send a pulse all along the border and through the StarGate system to keep the Aschen from reentering the Milky Way by ship or by Gate. The Standers would be free to repair what they could and to mourn what was irretrievably lost. The plan was working, but the price was far greater than they had ever imagined.

When the last Aschen ship winked out of the darkening skies over Hakter, Carter was huddled over Colonel O'Neill, desperately trying to staunch the blood spurting from the wound in his chest. She called for someone to open the StarGate back to Danara and ordered the withdrawal. Dragging their wounded and dying with them, the Standers stumbled back through the Gate.

She arrived on the other side drenched in the colonel's blood, her hands still pressed tightly into his chest. Word must have already reached the support personnel on Danara because hands pulled her away and began to minister to the colonel almost before she'd drawn in the first lungful of air unsullied with the acrid smoke of the battlefield they'd left behind on the other side.

Officials called to her as she numbly stared after the medical personnel carrying him away. "It did not go well, then?" She looked at her hands still wet with his blood, listened to the moans of the injured still being brought through the Gate behind her, and shook her head. No, it had not gone well.

"It's over then?" Chancellor Golant said, closing his eyes and shaking his head in deep regret. "This is where it ends?"

"No," she answered. "We were successful in driving the Aschen on to Torantay. And we will go on to meet them there as planned."

The officials looked at her with doubt and hope warring in their faces. She met their gaze without flinching. A small amount of blood oozed down her forehead from somewhere above her hairline; a rag was tied around her left leg and the torn material under it was dark with dried blood; her hands, chest, and bulging stomach were sticky and streaked with the congealing blood of their battle commander. But her blue eyes burned with the resoluteness and determination of one who would Stand until the end.

"You will lead them on then?" the chancellor asked.

"Until the last Aschen is driven from this galaxy," she promised him vehemently.

Satisfied, the officials nodded their heads as one and turned to spread the word. Despite appearances, the war was not lost. The fight would go on and, in the end, they would still be Standing while their enemies fled before them or lay still on the battlefield.

Someone pressed a cup of cold water into her hand. She drank it though it was coffee she wanted. Someone else stitched the cut on her head and the gouge in her thigh as she gathered those still able to fight and revamped a battle plan developed for an army of 150,000 into a strike plan for barely a tenth of that number. And all the time a part of her was bleeding away in grief and horror. Despite her brave words, she was shaking inside with the fear this really was the end.

They'd expected heavy losses at Hakter but not this. The dead and wounded there would cost them dearly at Torantay. And from there, they'd have to have enough still Standing for the final battle on Eonal. Victory was only two Gates and a jump away if only, somehow, they could pull off these last two battles. With the colonel down, it fell to her to pull it off. She knew what had to be done. The master plan was as much hers as his. But, she didn't want to carry on. Not when he was bleeding out in a field hospital somewhere. She tried to convince herself he would survive like he had more than once before when it had looked impossible. But, she didn't believe it. Sick at heart, she prepared to lead what was left of his army into battle. She had to carry on; this was what he was dying for.