Disclaimer: If I owned this would I be sitting in school scribbling down FANfiction instead of making notes for an 'A' Level Chemistry class?
It's all our fault. More my fault than theirs. I'm the one who couldn't see the approaching fleet. I'm the one who failed to prepare our defences. I'm...what's the use, it's over now. Nothing can change what has happened.
It started last week, after a routine mission. We knew it hadn't gone well. Hell, we told the General that nothing went right. And it hadn't. Our mission was a disaster, and that was my fault as well.
I insulted the leader. I sneezed at the wrong point in a sentence, a highly traditional and ritualistic greeting. It wasn't my fault that the scent from the incense burners tickled my olfactory organs, but what happened next was my fault. I failed to apologise for my insult, further offending the wise old man. We were forced to flee, not realising then what these people were capable of.
Back on Earth everything seemed normal. I dismissed the proximity warning as a sensor glitch or a stray asteroid. I didn't even bother to check out what the instruments were telling me. They approached undetected, four battlecruisers the size of Goa'uld motherships. We didn't know that anything was wrong until minutes before their attack started.
Our satellites went dead, that was our first warning. All communications, over the whole world, was cut off at the same instant. A single, synchronised attack destroyed every satellite in orbit around our pitifully defenceless planet. Then they attacked the planet itself.
Asia and Europe were the first ones to come under attack. Luckily the British, Chinese and French governments had just finished training their pilots with the 302s and had a small force of those craft each. But only Britain held out. The RAF and Royal Navy had a small area to defend compared with their allies in the Stargate programme. Britain was one of the last to fall.
All I could do was watch as, one-by-one, Russia, China and France's militaries were defeated, leaving two whole continents defenceless. I sent word to our allies offworld, but the Tok'ra are still not talking to us and the Asgard can't defend us unless the Goa'uld are involved. And they aren't.
Then they attacked us. Our Airforce and carrier fleets were ready, all planes taking to the air to defend our then great nation. It wasn't enough though. The enemy could tell that we were finished and they moved on to Africa and South America, leaving us to wait for our inevitable defeat.
It came quicker than anyone could have hoped for. They came back to finish us off, concentrating half their forces on us and half on Britain. We couldn't stand against them. They had the superior weapons and the greater numbers. As the ships rolled across the continent, destroying all cities I stood in the deserted Gate Room. I had remained to co-ordinate the defence of America, all others having evacuated to safe sites. But I'm not leaving. It was my incompetence that brought around Earth's downfall. I don't deserve to be ranked amongst the best. I stand now in the Gate Room, listening to the automated dialling system call up a deserted planet. General O'Neill thought he could ensure that I would join them by getting Hailey to lock out all planets but the Alpha Site, but I know these systems better than anyone else. I stand in front of the Gate, writing these final words as I wait for the seventh chevron to lock, for the wormhole to splash open, deadly vortex vaporizing anything in its path. On a normal day I wouldn't get this close, but this is no normal day, and I no longer deserve to live. Can whoever reads this pass on my regrets to General O'Neill. He'll understand. I'd say goodbye, but we're past that.
These are last words of Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, as found and read by High Commander Thor of the Asgard fleet. The book it was written in was found next to a pair of smoking boots by an active Stargate. All of those who resisted the Goa'uld mourned her, the loss of a brilliant mind and a superb warrior hard to bear for all.