X-302s flew overhead, something Sam had never expected to see in her own quiet neighborhood. What the advanced planes flew to face was something else that she had never expected to be dealing with so close to home; a goa'uld ship.

It had been a week since her father had left earth to move to the next tok'ra sight, she couldn't say that she was dying of boredom just yet, and she definetly wouldn't have chosen being awake this early.

Her neighbors had all run out of their houses and were standing in the street, Sam hadn't left her doorstep. Her cell phone was glued to her ear, in contact with General O'Neill at Stargate Command. "Sir, four X-302s just flew over my house," she said bluntly. She was wearing pajama pants and a tank top, a zip up sweatshirt loosely on top.

"I know, Carter, we mobilized about three minutes ago."

"Why wasn't I called?"

"I was dialing you as your call came through."

"What's going on?"

Her neighbors were starting to look to her for an explanation, knowing she was in the Air Force. She groaned at the thought of having to explain it to her grumpy, un-caffeinated neighbors before she had her own morning dose of coffee.

"Let me put it this way, Carter, everything went to hell about an hour ago. Ba'al is attacking and he isn't taking no for an answer."

"Ba'al?"

"Yeah, the one that hates us like there's no tomorrow, that Ba'al. He's started with Colorado Springs and Washington D.C. We're not sure if its because he's lost the Jaffa support and only has that many ships or if he's just waiting for something."

"Should we really be talking about this on the phone?"

"Carter, all classification has gone out the window. Get here ASAP," the line went dead in her hand and she snapped her phone shut, putting it in her sweatshirt pocket. She grabbed the closest pair of shoes, combat boots as it happened, and her SGC ID badge, heading to her car.

"Sam!" One of the women who lived across the street was in her driveway. Sam winced and looked over the top of her car at the woman, she was nice, had three kids, they'd had coffee a few times when Sam was actually home.

"Good morning, Beth."

"What the hell is going on?"

"Ummm…" More neighbors had joined them now, looking at Sam for information.

"Yeah, you're in the Air Force, right?" The man who lived next door asked. He'd come on to her when she'd first moved in but had been put off by the dog tags that now hung in plain view on her neck. Sam dialed the SGC again; it would take her a lot longer to get out of her neighborhood with all these people in her driveway, and filling the street.

A death glider zoomed overhead, tailed by an X-302. It fired and the death glider exploded midair, luckily the remains fell on a deserted park down the street. Neighbors shrieked as the playground equipment went up in flames, a playground that their children played on. The X-302 had taken damage, stumbling in for a landing on her street. The pilot opened the top and stumbled out. He was bleeding and seemed like he would pass out any second.

"Airman?" Sam called, rushing over to him, ignoring her neighbors. The man yanked off his helmet, putting a hand to his head and stumbling away from the craft that was sending up sparks from the cockpit. He looked around and smiled in a semi-conscious way when he saw her.

"Colonel Carter!" He saluted and promptly fell over. Sam checked his vitals and looked him over, her military training taking over, making it easier to ignore the neighbors and the blood that was getting all over her pajamas. There was nothing she could do for the pilot, though he was in no immediate threat so far as she could tell. She pulled the radio out of his hear and pressed it into her own, immediately picking up radio chatter on all stations.

Climbing carefully into the cockpit she crouched on the chair and looked over the console in front of her. A few careful adjustments and it stopped sparking. She used her sweatshirt sleeve to wipe the blood off the computer monitor and began trying to make contact. "Command this is Colonel Sam Carter, what is the situation?" She repeated over and over on different channels until she got a response.

"Carter?" It was Jack's voice. "What are you doing in the cockpit?"

"An X-302 crashed in my driveway, sir."

"Oh."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing much, how's the coffee?"

"Sir!"

"Sorry, nothing to report, the motherships are moving closer to the SGC though, there'll be three on top of us in a matter of minutes. You need to get here now Sam."

"Yes, sir," she recognized the tone in his voice and didn't need to be told twice. She gave the X-302 a kick and it started right up.

"Wait, you know how to work these things?" Beth was at her side; Sam gave her a sympathetic smile.

"I don't really study deep space radio telemetry," she said, sealing the cockpit. Neighbors backed away as the quiet woman they'd all seen mowing her lawn the night before piloted the strange craft with obvious experience.

Sam didn't get far. An alkesh was flying straight toward her, as though its sole purpose was taking her out. "Sam," Jack's voice crackled over the radio, "you should be aware, Ba'al is sending alkesh after SGC personnel. One just blew up the apartment complex Teal'c lives in; luckily everybody was in the street looking at the sky but…"

"Understood, sir," so that was why the alkesh looked so purposeful. Sam maneuvered up and began firing on the larger ship, the shields held back most of the potential blows. Thinking fast, Sam piloted in close to the ship's hull, inside the shields and began firing. The alkesh went down, right on the already flaming park. Unfortunately, the explosion was slightly larger than the death glider's had been, and Sam's X-302 was very close. She went down too.

She leapt out of the cockpit, mimicking the action of the previous pilot. Sam searched the cockpit for anything useful to fight anything / anybody that came out of the fallen ship. She found a P90, unfortunately there weren't very many bullets left for her to use. Her neighbors had walked the short distance to the park and were now watching her reload the P90 with casual skill that surprised, and concerned them. Sam paid no attention, Why did he have a P90 in here anyways? was all she could think.

The hatch blew on the alkesh and Sam cocked the weapon, using the X-302 as cover. Four Jaffa came out first; Sam felt an extreme dislike for those Jaffa who had stayed in the service of the Goa'uld. They began firing at anything that moved immediately; a dog was the first to go, taken by a staff weapon. People began really screaming then, running in the opposite direction. Beth and her immediate next door neighbor, Craig, ended up hiding behind the X-302 with Sam. She realized this when she spun around to reload and found two terrified faces staring back at her.

"You should get out of here," Sam told them, trying to ignore the pure terror in their eyes. This was everyday stuff for Sam, it was hard to imagine not exchanging ammo with a Goa'uld, but this wasn't some other planet; that was her house right down the street, with her recently trimmed lawn and freshly watered front garden.

"Like hell we should," Craig responded. He looked too scared to move. "We're safer next to the one with the gun than running brainless," he had a point, but…

"Yeah, but the one with the gun is the one they're after."

"Why're they after you? What did you ever do to them?"

"Oh, you have no idea," Sam couldn't help but smile. She jumped back up and took down the rest of the Jaffa that had exited the ship. Now she waited for any stragglers; none came so she approached the hatch with caution.

Her neighbors peeked out from around the side of the X-302, not wanting to loose their cover, or their soldier protector.

Sam entered the alkesh and found Ba'al's first prime standing just inside the door, waiting for her. Sam raised the gun to let off a volley in his stomach but found that she was out of ammo. Shit.

The jaffa grabbed her throat and dragged her out of the dying alkesh. "And now I have his favorite," he sneered, looking down at the woman struggling in his stranglehold. "My lord Ba'al will be most pleased," gaining a momentary advantage as the jaffa looked around; Sam twisted just right and slipped out of his hold. She punched him solidly in the face, right hook; she could hear his nose crack. Yelling in rage, the jaffa jabbed a pain stick into her side and gave her a kick that sent her flying across the road and into some bushes. She got up quickly, noticing that there were four grown men cowering behind the line of bushes she had crashed into.

Sam was out of weapons. There was a fallen Jaffa nearby, she grabbed his zat. Hiding the weapon behind her she came out from behind the bushes. The jaffa approached, holding the pain stick in front of him. He closed the distance between them remarkably quickly, jabbing her with the pain stick before she realized he was in range. Sam cried out, dropping to her knees, light coming from all the openings of her body.

Ba'al's first prime kicked her after a moment longer with the pain stick pressed to her skin. "Colonel Carter, I am glad to have the honor to kill you for my lord Ba'al."

Sam struggled to bring the zat around and fire it at him. He went down immediately, unconscious. Sam shot him again, standing with a disgusted look on her face. She removed the pain stick from him, shooting him a third time. Beth approached looking at the spot where the Goa'uld had been.

Sam limped over and threw the pain stick in the burning mass that had been two ships and a playground; she had never hated the Goa'uld than she did right now. On the ground she found a hand device, putting it on for lack of any better ideas what to do with it. She made her way to the airman that had piloted the X-302 into her neighborhood and took his thigh holster, putting her zat in it. The poor man was still unconscious. She turned to face her neighbors who were emerging from behind the bushes again. What a sight. Sam thought, looking around. Not only were there dead aliens all over their neighborhood, but she had just disintegrated one after he'd used an alien torture device on her.

"Can you make sure he's okay?" She asked Beth. The other woman nodded dumbly.

"Sam, what's going on?"

"We're finally being attacked, we've made them angry enough…" Sam trailed off, not wanting to give a full explanation. "There'll be an official report on TV in a few hours; I have to get to work."

"All this is going on and you have to get to work?" One neighbor asked, she thought his name was Joe but she wasn't sure, they'd never properly met.

"I'm Air Force…"

"Well I knew that…"

"How've you made them angry? Who's we? I thought aliens didn't exist…" It was the neighborhood conspiracy buff. The man was in his early twenties and never came out of his house, but Sam had seen him watching the neighborhood with binoculars from his upstairs window plenty of times. Sam just sighed, wishing she'd had a chance to have a cup of coffee before this had happened. I really hate Ba'al.

She jumped when her sweatshirt began ringing. It was Mark. I really don't want to deal with this now! "Hello?"

"Sam? Are you okay? I saw it on TV! What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing. I missed my coffee this morning, not really happy Mark, not at all. Oh, and Ba'al is attacking earth… yeah, he crashed his ship on that nice playground the kids played at last time and a couple of jaffa tried to kill me."

"What?"

"The alien that's attacking, I know him personally. He's not very nice. Really hates me and the rest of my team."

"What are you talking about?"

"Watch the news, Mark, I've got to go to work," she paused, feeling bad to be so short with him. "Sorry, I'm fine thank you for calling. I'll talk to you later if I can; get the kids in the basement and turn on cartoons or something, okay?"

"What's going on, Sam?" He wasn't happy but she hung up on him anyways, ignoring when he called back three times in a row.

She got in her car and honked the horn till her neighbors cleared her driveway. She drove off as quickly as she could, considering that the streets were full of worried people.

"The cars work? This isn't anything like that movie…" She heard one man say before she closed the windows and turned on the radio. Even the stations that usually played music had switched to live news reports. Announcers talked quickly, stress and worry evident in their voices. It was obvious they'd all rather be at home with their families, anywhere but at the office even if it meant the most recent information.

"The President has yet to issue and official statement about our current state of affairs, however several prominent politicians have come forward to comment on the obvious lack of…" Sam switched to another channel, on which Kinsey was filling the radio waves with his usual bullshit. This only served to piss her off.

"Colonel Carter?" She jumped, she'd forgotten she still had the radio in her ear.

"Go ahead for Carter."

"General O'Neill says to be prepared to board the Daniel Jackson."

"What?"

"Ummm… All I've got is a slip that says you should turn off the car…" Sam immediately knew what he was talking about even though the officer obviously didn't. In this emergency all military personnel were getting unguarded amounts of information, half the time they didn't know what it meant and didn't have the authority or clearance to ask for more information. Sam pulled over and shut the car off, closing the door as her world disintegrated.

"Carter, you look like hell," Jack's familiar voice came from across the hall of Thor's ship. She looked down at herself and realized that she must look truly awful. Her hair had yet to be brushed and she was wearing no makeup, her pajama pants were stained with dirt and grass, the holster and zat looking decidedly out of place among the blue and green plaid. Her sweatshirt, gray at one time, had blood on the sleeves and down the front. Her pocket bulged with her cell phone and she had Ba'al's hand device on her left hand. Not to mention the old, scuffed and well worn combat boots.

"Not my fault I didn't get coffee…" She mumbled, not making eye contact. He was looking like he'd just walked away from a press conference in his dress blues complete with hat.

"I regret that I do not have any more suitable attire for you to change into before I send you back, Colonel, but I am able to provide you with the coffee drink you desire," Thor said. Remarkably, he looked concerned for her. She wasn't sure if she'd just gotten better at reading him or if he was just feeling very emotional.

"Umm," Sam started, remembering her previous experience with Asgard food. Before she could protest a steaming Starbuck's cup appeared on the floor at Sam's feet. Sam smiled and lifted the coffee, inhaling its rich scent. "Thank you, Thor."

"It is my pleasure, Colonel," with that he beamed them directly into the President's office. Not good!

The entire capital was on alert, the President pacing and secret service agents nearly dog piled the pair of them when they suddenly appeared. "Watch the coffee!" Sam blurted out, holding it close to her chest in a very unmilitary fashion. Jack smiled at her, removing his hat and turning to the President. The secret service agents retreated to the edges of the room, casting them both wary looks, especially Sam. Sam would've like nothing more than to sit down on the couch and drink her warm drink but she turned to face the Commander in Chief instead, sipping her coffee and trying to make herself look slightly more presentable. "Sorry, sir," she added hastily.

The President didn't seem to notice her coffee or her pajamas, or the blood on her pajamas, but he started talking very fast. "What the hell is going on? What the hell am I supposed to tell the press? I've had to unplug all phones just to keep the press out; they've even got my cell number!" The poor man was in a panic. Jack calmly took a seat on the other side of the desk, Sam followed suit and sipped her coffee.

Three hours later they were all still sitting in the same places, discussing what to do. The President wasn't sure what there best option was and it hadn't helped the Kinsey had burst in to make his feelings known. He hadn't taken kindly to Sam's attire either.

"Colonel why the hell aren't you in uniform?"

"Watch your mouth, Kinsey," Jack had interjected.

"Sir, I woke at 0400 this morning when an X-302 crashed in my driveway," she gave him a look that dared him to respond.