Disclaimer: I don't own 'Stargate Atlantis' or any related concepts or characters; you know the drill by now. Also, the basic details of the plot were inspired by 'The Phantom of the Opera', although I have naturally put my own spin on things; hope it meets with your approval

Feedback: Always appreciated, trust me

AN: Reference is made in this chapter to a group known as 'the Pack', who appear in the Stargate SG-1 novel 'Relativity'; if you're a fan of the series, I can recommend that book in particular, as it features such gems as the return of a devastating old enemy, Kinsey getting taken down a few pegs as he tries to make a political breakthrough, and a time-travel situation that sees a certain member of SG-1 actually meeting themselves…

Clash of the Phantoms

As he returned to the Stargate, John wondered if this particular trip had been worth the effort of him coming here or not. There had been no sign of anyone doubting his abilities after the traumatic experience of confronting that psychotic doppelganger, and he'd never explicitly requested that he get special treatment, but at the same time it was hard to miss the fact that they hadn't gone on any particularly dangerous missions for the past couple of weeks. McKay was caught up in going over the city's systems to check out some rooms in a new part of the ship, Teyla and Ronon were working on maintaining Atlantis's old alliances now that their Stargate address had changed, and Elizabeth was trying to keep everything in order despite the IOA's latest argument against him after his 'doppelganger' nearly killed McKay and Heightmeyer.

And that political crap is why I stayed independent for so long; it was so much easier kicking ass when I didn't answer to anybody…

After all those issues, John had appreciated being assigned to this relatively simple follow-up mission to go over the research station he'd just been checking out. The staff at the research station had been working fairly well with the local population, and the planet itself was as close to a tropical paradise as he could expect to encounter in a galaxy where basically any planet could be prey to life-sucking alien monsters.

Granted, a few people still looked awkwardly at him when he was walking around, even when he was wearing the mask, but that was nothing more than what he was used to experiencing at this point in his life. With everything that doppelganger thing had tried to make him confront, it was good to have a few easy missions to get himself feeling like he could still get the job done…

Unfortunately, just as John was preparing to call Atlantis after activating the Stargate, the jumper was suddenly hit by some kind of energy blast. Quickly activating the Heads-Up Display, John saw enough to confirm that he wasn't dealing with a Wraith ship, but a second blast disrupted his systems and shut down the jumper's computer before he could send a message through the gate to tell Atlantis what had just happened. Stuck for better options, John could only stare out of the jumper's front window in frustration as a larger spaceship lowered into position around the Jumper, the hatch sealing below him as the ship's sensors confirmed that there was now an atmosphere outside.

The ship was too obviously metallic to be any kind of Wraith ship, it looked too primitive to be some kind of Goa'uld or Asgard ship, and it wasn't quite like anything Earth had even if one of their ships would have had a reason to be doing something like this. Unfortunately, since those were the only major spacefaring races who might have had access to this galaxy that he knew about, that left him stuck for candidates.

"Right," John nodded firmly, standing up and removing his make-up with one hand before grabbing his mask with the other. "If they want to capture me, I'm going to make them earn it."

He had just managed to get his cloak on when the jumper door opened, revealing a group of three men in differing styles of black-and-brown leathers, two looking around a decade younger than John while the third man seemed a bit older than him, all three pointing weapons at him that reminded John of his own gun.

"Hi," John replied, enjoying the brief shock on their faces as they realised that they were looking at the Phantom. "I've been assisting my colleagues in Atlantis with a few problems; don't suppose you'd be willing to let me get back to business?"

Taking advantage of the continued shock on their faces, John lunged forwards, striking out with the flat of his sword to knock the men's guns from their hands, following it up with a rapid spinning kick that knocked two of the men to the ground and sent the third staggering back.

"Nice ship," John said, walking out of the jumper and raising his sword to hold it against the man's throat, taking an appraising glance at the simple design of the hanger he was now standing in. "It's a bit of a fixer-upper, but with some paint, I could see the potential…"

"What are you doing there?" the man said. "We understood that John Sheppard was assigned to this mission-"

"And you think that Atlantis doesn't have its own contacts?" John countered, relieved that they didn't know the truth about what was under the mask. "So, now that we've established that you can't hold me here against my will, maybe we could-"

The ship suddenly shook around them, with the kind of sensation that John was starting to recognise after the last year or so of semi-regular access to hyperdrive-capable ships.

"Let me guess," he said, shifting his gaze to the man at the end of his sword, "you're taking me somewhere via hyperspace?"

"Yes," the man nodded awkwardly.

"Right," John said, lowering the sword and punching the man in the face, quickly scanning the surrounding ship before his gaze settled on a suitable door.

"Well," he said, flexing his shoulders as he made sure he had his sword and his gun ready for what was coming up, "time to do the Die Hard bit."

With those words, he charged through the door and into the heart of the ship. Even as the lenses in his mask quickly adjusted themselves to compensate for the new darkness surrounding him, he took in the unusual state of the ship's interior; after so long dealing with pristinely-designed structures, this ship looked like it had been put together, or was at least held together, more by sheer desperation than coordinated effort. Every wall he walked past had cables trailing out of it, some only just held in place and others hanging down to the floor, and the occasional soldiers he encountered during his search went down fairly quickly. John checked out a few doors at first, and confirmed that the walls in these areas were at least solid even if they were fairly sparse, but casual checks ended when he found a room with a computer in it.

Quickly accessing the computer, John wondered at the ease with which he'd managed to access this ship's database, but soon decided to treat it as a result of long-standing isolation rather than incompetence; this ship felt too old to be something that had only just come together, but people who had been travelling like this for a while may have just gotten used to their secrecy being their main security. In any case, the ship's layout was clearly labelled, with a few floors specifically designated as research labs, weapons operations, or command areas, even if a large part of the ship was set aside for civilian use.

Spaceborne civilisations staying ahead of the Wraith because they're never on-planet long enough to become a target… John mused, remembering a file he'd read at the SGC about a group known as 'the Pack' who had done something similar to stay ahead of the Goa'uld back in the Milky Way before a mess involving the Aschen and some complicated twists involving time travel that Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson had only told him in confidence.

Shaking his head to get his mind back on track, John studied the layout diagram one last time before determining his best route to the bridge; take the right shafts, move quickly, and he could reach his target soon enough. With that decision made, he ran out of the room and hurried down the corridor towards the nearest vent, smiling in relief as he found the hatch open already as another example of the lacklustre repair initiative of these people.

I love that shield device, John thought to himself as he reached the top of the shaft, the device in question now pinned to his chest and working overtime to keep him protected from the heat of the vent he'd just left without cutting off his oxygen. Climbing this air vent had been tricky, since the tunnel hadn't been designed for internal access and there had been the risk of an energy burst that would push the shield device's limits, but it had been the best way to bypass some of the civilian-occupied levels, since his map of the ship's internal structure confirmed that it would lead him almost directly to the bridge.

Drawing his pistol, John fired an energy blast at the wall that would lead to the bridge, diving out of the tunnel into a corridor with a small group of guards gathered around a large door at the other end. John guessed that they had been sent here to stop him gaining access, but they were nevertheless caught off-guard by him appearing this close this suddenly. John had gotten to his feet and stunned half of them with his swiftly-reset gun before the other three could get into a position to properly fight back, and after that it was almost tragically easy to break the weapons of the remaining three with his sword and knock them out with punches and a kick respectively.

Walking into the now-unguarded bridge, John turned his gun onto the only person standing among the complex tangle of cables that congregated on the collection of cables, computers, and a single chair in the centre of the room. This was a tall woman wearing a sleeveless, shoulderless brown leather top with curly light brown hair, who held herself with the kind of casual confidence of a woman who had earned her command and wasn't afraid to make her position clear.

"Hi," John said, giving the woman a mocking half-smile under his mask. "I take it you're the one in charge of this screwy outfit?"

"Larrin," the woman replied briefly, looking him over appraisingly for a moment. "Assuming you are who you appear to be, what are you doing on one of the ships used by Atlantis?"

"I help Atlantis out with a few problems sometimes; this was just one of the smaller cases where I've offered them my services," John replied. "Care to turn this ship around so I can get back there?"

"Impossible," Larrin replied firmly. "I set our course as soon as you were on board, and the moment you started trying to get up here, I locked the guidance system with a code only I know."

"In other words, we're not turning back until we get to where you want me to go," John said, looking her over in an appraising manner. "Bold move."

"In what way?"

"Aren't you forgetting that I have a ship of my own back the way I came?" John clarified (mentioning torture as an option was already off the table; a woman like this wouldn't give into that unless he was willing to go further than he ever wanted to). "What's to stop me just going back to the hanger and bailing out?"

"Aside from the fact that you'd be trapped in hyperspace?"

"Theoretically," John countered, hiding the fact that she'd made a good point; he hadn't bothered to bring his hyperspace-capable jumper on this trip, so he'd be in trouble trying to get back to Atlantis even if he knew exactly where he was once he had returned to normal space, and that was assuming the jumper survived the transition. "In any case, consider yourself lucky to have piqued my interest; if you'd care to explain who you are…?"

"So long as you explain how you came to own one of our weapons."

"I found it in a crashed ship on a distant planet a few years ago; it seemed like a good weapon, so I kept it. Now, as to yourself?"

"We are Travellers."

"In other words, you live on these ships all the time?" John asked, suddenly reminded of tales of gypsies from some of the stories he'd read as a kid before he left Earth.

"We land on planets when we need to for supplies and trade," Larrin clarified. "The rest of the time we keep moving."

"Staying away from the Wraith?"

"That may have been how it started, but now it's just who we are," Larrin said

"I see," John mused. "No offence intended to you, but that doesn't sound like much of a life."

"Being a herd animal isn't much of a life," Larrin countered. "Besides, the food we make here has all the nutrients required."

"I can speak from experience that there's a difference between what's required and what's actually wanted," John countered, recalling some of those grim early days in Atlantis where he'd tried desperately to learn how to cook for himself, setting up a few basic gardens in some of the more open rooms and stealing cattle from a couple of villages (when he hadn't made his mask or started hunting Wraith, he'd had no reputation to rely on) before he learned how to hunt and scavenge for himself. "And that doesn't explain why you went to this kind of trouble to bring me here."

"Because you can operate the technology of the Ancestors."

"And how do you know that?"

"Even before we knew who you were, your ship was the obvious clue," Larrin explained. "We have encountered ships like that on other worlds, as well as hearing tales of Atlantis's actions against the Wraith, and have never been able to so much as turn them on. We don't have the ability to use the technology of the Ancestors, but we have learned a fair amount about how to use it if we could get around that rule."

"I see," John mused; the story raised a few question-marks about where they might have found puddle jumpers outside of Atlantis, but it wasn't impossible for the Ancients to have a few offworld bases that were the equivalent of Earth's Alpha Sites that he'd never found himself. "And what do you want me to activate?"

"We'll be there in a moment if you care to wait," Larrin said. "We also intended to test a control interface adapter-"

"Won't work."

"You can't be certain-"

"No offence, but if this is an example of your technology, I'm inclined to think that you don't have the ability to pull that off," John explained, indicating the haphazardly-designed bridge. "You've got some good technical skills, but you're hampered by the fact that you've focused on technology over biology; you just don't have the background expertise to know how to bring the two together."

"You think we're incapable?"

"As you are now, yes," John nodded.

"And what if we had the opportunity to reverse-engineer already-initialised Ancestral technology?" Larrin asked. "Would that affect your opinion of us?"

"…Possible," John conceded, eyebrows raised thoughtfully under his mask. "What technology would we be talking about here?"

"If you'll observe?" Larrin said, indicating a computer display to the left of the central chair. Walking over to stand slightly behind Larrin, allowing her to adjust the screen without giving her the chance to attack him in turn, John watched as she tapped a couple of controls and the screen changed from its original display of some kind of power level to a camera view of what he assumed was the ship's exterior, with the space outside filled by an Ancient cruiser.

It had clearly been through a lot, since he could see a few areas on the hull that looked like they'd been patched up with makeshift replacement metals, even allowing for his likely distance from the ship and the quality of this camera, but considering how old it had to be, finding a cruiser in that kind of shape was impressive.

And there I was thinking that the Orion was the last of her kind…

"A cruiser?" John said, looking at Larrin with a raised eyebrow under his mask, hiding how impressed he was at the discovery.

"Dormant for thousands of years, until we found it."

"And why was it abandoned?"

"We accessed the ship's logs and determined that the ship was attacked by the Wraith," Larrin explained. "They lost communication and the shields were failing. The engines were damaged as well but they managed to escape into hyperspace, then they realised that their main drive was giving off deadly radiation. They were forced to abandon ship; they make reference to intending to return and effect repairs, but for some reason they never got the chance. The ship's been drifting in a two hundred year elliptical orbit around a nearby dwarf star ever since."

"OK, that mostly sounds good, apart from the bit where there's radiation involved," John said, the hand holding his sword raising it in a warning gesture; his personal shield would probably protect him from radiation, but it would be tricky to adjust it to the right frequency and he didn't want to give away that kind of advantage…

"We have shield emitters to protect key areas of the ship, and we all wear radiation detectors while on-board."

"Right," John nodded, looking at Larrin with an increasingly pointed glare. "So… you have a Lantean cruiser available, you need someone with the right gene to activate it, and you decided that the best way to do it was to abduct someone working for Atlantis, the Stargate address with the best chance against the Wraith, and risk making yourselves their enemy?"

"We're used to acting on our own-" Larrin began.

"You see?" John cut Larrin off with a cold glare. "This is why I was the only reason people in this galaxy started to have any damn chance against the Wraith; everyone in a position to do anything to the Wraith was so busy not trusting everyone else in that position that half of the planets basically stabbed each other in the back before the half were even thinking of doing anything to them!"

"We couldn't take the chance that you might have said no-"

"If I was the type of man who would do something like that, I would have stunned you and started torturing you for that code the moment that this little talk started," John countered. "As it was, I gave you the chance to speak your piece-"

"Once you tore your way through half my crew-"

"Taking the most direct route here once I found a map and without killing anyone even when it would be easy to do so, I would like to remind you," the man publically known as the Phantom said firmly. He stared at Larrin in exasperation for a moment before he sighed. "Unfortunately for me, if I believe that argument, it also means that I'm pretty much obligated to help you out now, even if I will have my own conditions."

"Such as?" Larrin asked.

"You dragged me into this and tried to take me prisoner without even asking me if I'd be willing to help out; I think I've earned the right to give you conditions before I agree to anything," John said. "Tit for tat, right?"

"…Fine," Larrin said, eyes narrowing as she looked at John. "Just so long as you remember that my people come first."

"That's the same for everyone in Pegasus in my experience, Larrin," John countered as he sheathed his sword. "The difference is that my people don't think it's safer to hit the other guy first before we've established if he's even thinking of doing it to us."

Probably not the most diplomatic way to start a potential relationship with these people, but I'm not the diplomat; hopefully Larrin's professional enough not to let that sour future relations…