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
The Phantom of Atlantis
A couple of days later, Doctor Elizabeth Weir sat in her office in Atlantis, her door closed as she stared reflectively at the Ancient shield device in her hands and wondered how she had come to this.
When she'd left Earth, she'd imagined, at best, coming to a city full of living, breathing Ancients who they could talk to and learn first-hand about their culture and technology, and at worst discovering an abandoned Ancient outpost filled with all kinds of advanced technological wonders that they could explore and study at their leisure.
Instead, not only had they landed themselves in the middle of a war against an advanced alien race to whom they were nothing more than a food source, but they had also arrived in a city that was already inhabited by an unknown individual whose origins and motives were a complete mystery to the team…
And the weirdest part was that, even with what she didn't know about him, Elizabeth was already interested in learning more about him as a person, rather than the myth that he was to the Athosians.
She couldn't understand what she found so intriguing about him. Admittedly, his reputation as a hero for the Pegasus Galaxy- based on what they'd gathered from the Athosians- was interesting, but, as Colonel Sumner had pointed out, they didn't know his reasons for doing so; for all they knew, the Phantom could be eliminating the Wraith in order to prepare the Pegasus Galaxy for an invasion by the Goa'uld or some other alien race.
Although Elizabeth doubted that the Goa'uld example was the case- from what she'd seen of the Goa'uld during her time as the commander of the SGC and what she'd heard about the Phantom, he was displaying none of the typical Goa'uld ego that would have practically forced them to announce their presence even if they didn't reveal their true natures-, it nevertheless didn't change the fact that the Phantom could have ulterior motives beyond simple heroism.
So why am I so interested in defending him? Elizabeth thought, staring reflectively at the shield device that she had found in her office last week. She still hadn't told Colonel Sumner about the device, concerned that he'd confiscate it on the grounds that the Phantom might have tampered with it somehow; for the moment, this was the only tangible proof she had that his 'ulterior motives', if he had any, might actually be beneficial towards them…
No, she had to be honest with herself if she was going to get anywhere; it was the only tangible proof she had that he might care for her.
She knew that, when she phrased it like that, it sounded like she was a schoolgirl trying to hang on to proof that the cute guy at the front of the class actually liked her, but it wasn't like that. The shield device simply confirmed that the Phantom was thinking of people other than himself; he didn't need to give her this shield device, and yet he'd done it anyway…
Despite herself, Elizabeth smiled slightly at her own thoughts.
If anyone else could hear me right now, they'd probably be thinking that the lady doth protest too much, she mused to herself, as she slipped the shield device back into her desk drawer and glanced over at the Stargate a few metres outside her office window. Currently Colonel Sumner and his team were on their first actual mission as a team- it had taken a while for Teyla and the other Athosians to become proficient enough with the Earth expedition's weapons for Sumner to feel comfortable allowing them out on the field with the rest of the expedition-, investigating the planet where the prisoners had been taken earlier in an attempt to find out more information about the Wraith by exploring their base. Admittedly, the task was a risky one- the fact that Sumner's team lacked a qualified pilot was a particular point of concern for Elizabeth; McKay and Sumner had both responded to the ATA gene therapy, but neither of them had trained to fly anything-, but Sergeant Markham had agreed to come along to serve as the gateship's pilot in the event that the main team needed aerial assistance while exploring their surroundings.
Sumner…
Elizabeth groaned inwardly.
Now there was a topic she didn't want to get into.
Her military commander may have been good at his job, and at least he respected her authority- he hadn't attempted to replace her as the city's overall commander despite the fact that they were technically in a military situation rather than the simple scientific exploration they'd been expecting-, but at the same time he was a very single minded individual; as far as he was concerned, if you were in Atlantis you had your specific place in the hierarchy and you had to stick to it.
He'd cared enough about the Athosians to try and protect them from the Wraith, true, but if they hadn't been able to offer such valuable insight and information about some of the other natives of the Pegasus Galaxy, Elizabeth had little doubt that he would have been perfectly satisfied simply to leave the Athosians on another planet once they'd identified a suitably Wraith-free location and leave them to fend for themselves afterwards. It wasn't that he didn't care, he just preferred to focus on the military side of things and leave Elizabeth to worry about everything else.
It was at times like this, more than ever, that Elizabeth wished she'd been able to bring Colonel Carter and Doctor Jackson along with her; the two of them had proven time and again on SG-1 that they cared about helping people even if Earth wasn't going to get anything out of it, such as when they'd helped to move the Enkarans to another planet when their original home became uninhabitable, or Doctor Jackson's own actions early on in the SGC's existence when he'd allowed the Tollan to go free because he'd felt that getting the advanced technology they possessed wasn't worth the crime that would have been committed to achieve that goal.
It wasn't that she felt that Sumner would do something on that scale, of course, but his automatically treating the Phantom like an enemy hadn't done much to improve her opinion of him...
Why is it, Elizabeth mused to herself, that no matter what I end up thinking about since I come here, it always ends up back at the Phantom?
Seriously, she had to stop doing that; what would Simon think if they ever made contact with Earth and-?
Elizabeth froze.
That was the first time since she'd come to Atlantis that she'd actually thought about Simon. She hadn't forgotten that she had someone back on Earth, of course- the necklace she wore was a daily reminder of him; it was one of the first gifts he'd ever given her-, but with the mystery of the Phantom's existence and motives dominating her thoughts, she just hadn't had the time to reflect much on the life she'd left behind her...
And, now that she was, she found that she didn't really miss it.
More specifically, she found that she didn't really miss Simon.
She had cared about him, of course, but, looking back at her life with him now, Elizabeth found that she couldn't entirely recall why she'd stayed with him for so long. He'd understood the importance of her work, of course, but he'd never even shown that much of an interest in it; she'd always asked him how his work at the hospital had gone even if at least half of what he talked about would have gone over her head, but he had never once bothered to ask her how her own day had gone. Admittedly, she would have been able to share less about herself with him than he would have been able to tell her- the fact that she spent most of her time on classified projects made it difficult for her to really talk to anyone who didn't have at least Stargate-level clearance or higher-, but she would have at least given him some information about her work if he'd only asked.
But he never had.
She had always tried to show an interest in his life even if she wouldn't completely understand it, but he had never once asked her to talk about her own life.
Now that Elizabeth thought about it, she wasn't sure what she would have said even if he had asked her. Would she have felt comfortable telling him about the times she'd narrowly averted a potential diplomatic crisis, if not an actual war, in the UN? Would she have been able to tell him how she had felt when she was forced to order Colonel O'Neill and his team to go on a potentially suicidal mission to a location that may or not have been the Lost City (Admittedly, it had turned out to not be the actual Lost City, but it had provided them with a ZPM and the coordinates they needed to find the city's 'gate address)? Would she be able to explain why she was so interested in the Phantom-?
Elizabeth could have slapped her head in frustration at herself.
No matter what she tried, it always came back to the Phantom in the end.
She just couldn't understand why she was so intrigued by him. Apart from all the tales she'd heard of him from the Athosians, the only thing he'd done that suggested he even might have some personal interest in her was the shield device he'd apparently left for her, and even that could be described as potentially stalker-like behaviour rather than him actually being interested in her protection out of the kindness of his heart...
Yet, somehow, Elizabeth didn't believe that.
If he'd just wanted her to trust him, why would he give her something that he couldn't control himself; she'd seen when McKay had been trying to take the shield off that even those expedition members with the most control over the ATA gene had been unable to make the shield device come off before McKay himself had 'decided' to do so.
If he genuinely wanted to harm her, he wouldn't have given her something that she could use to protect herself from him, right...?
Why is it, Elizabeth groaned to herself as she slumped into her chair, staring once again at the shield device she held in her hand, that it's so much easier for me to determine people's potential motives when I'm not one of the people who'll be affected by their actions?
She'd always known what to do when attempting to negotiate peace between countries when the final result would have no impact whatsoever on her and her way of life, but when faced with trying to figure out where she and Simon stood at the moment, she had no real idea where she could even begin...
And as for-
The sound of the Stargate dialling up outside her office broke off that train of thought before it could get much further- a fact that Elizabeth was grateful for; the last thing she wanted was to start debating with herself about the Phantom all over again-, prompting Elizabeth to get to her feet and walk into the control room.
"What's going on?" she asked, glancing anxiously at the technician who was currently sitting at the main control console.
"The reconnaissance team is reporting a medical emergency," the man replied, looking apologetically back at her. "I've alerted Dr. Beckett; he's on his way."
"Put on Colonel Sumner," Elizabeth said, pushing all thoughts of her previous topic of internal debate out of her mind; right now she had more immediate matters to attend to.
"He's the one who's injured," the technician said suddenly, ending any hopes Elizabeth had that whatever the team had encountered was something that could be easily dealt with.
As much as she was uncomfortable around Sumner as a person, Elizabeth was fully aware that he was a very efficient soldier; if he was injured badly enough that he couldn't respond over the radio, then the situation couldn't be encouraging.
"Flight!" Lieutenant Ford's voice suddenly said over the radio. "Gateship One on final approach!"
Nodding briefly at the technician to activate the radio at their end, Elizabeth stepped forward to respond to the lieutenant's report.
"This is Weir," she said promptly. "What's the nature of Colonel Sumner's injury?"
"Some sort of funky alien bug attached itself to his neck," the voice of Lieutenant Ford said over the radio link. "He's completely immobile."
"What's it doing to him?" Elizabeth asked, focusing on the central issue of the lieutenant's statement despite the other questions that remained after the lieutenant's statement; there would be time to ask how the bug had attached itself to Sumner's neck later.
"We don't know," Ford replied, sounding hurried as he spoke- evidently he just wanted to get the current conversation over with so that they could get back to Atlantis as fast as possible-, "but we can't get it off him, and we tried everything."
"You understand the risk of bringing something like that back to Atlantis?" she countered, wishing that she didn't sound like the type of person she'd just been mentally criticising Sumner for being. The fact that she was dealing with an insect of some kind that was almost certainly operating on instinct as opposed to a human being capable of rational thought and decision-making didn't change the fact that she was automatically considering the potential problems rather than the potential benefits; for all she knew this 'bug' could provide them with some important information about how life and evolution in the Pegasus Galaxy had diverged from that in the Milky Way galaxy.
"Yes, Ma'am, I do, but we really don't have a choice in the matter," Ford replied briefly.
That last comment was all Elizabeth really needed to know; if Ford, one of the most by-the-book men on Atlantis, thought that there was no other choice but to bring Sumner back in his current condition, then they really didn't have a choice. Ford was one of the more experienced members of the expedition when it came to Stargate travel, having been a member of various SG-teams prior to being permanently assigned to Atlantis; he knew the risks better than most, and, if he believed this was the only option, than it was the only option.
"Understood, Lieutenant," she said finally. "Good luck."
As soon as she had terminated the radio, she glanced over at one of the nearby soldiers and nodded resolutely. "Quarantine the gateship bay."
The soldier simply nodded in response before he left to begin to carry out her orders, accompanied by the technician turning to the consoles before him and quickly beginning to enter the required commands. As she saw the soldiers begin to hurry towards the gateship bay, Elizabeth turned her attention back to the Stargate before her, her fingers crossed as she waited for the gateship to come through and her chief military officer to be back in Beckett's hands (With the situation the way it was, and with Sumner never having managed to get around to appointing a replacement second-in-command, she couldn't afford to lose anyone else).
After a few moments, however, the Stargate remained active without anything having come through it, the alarms simply blaring on in the background with no sign that the cause of them would be arriving any time soon, prompting Elizabeth to glance over at the technician in confusion.
"Where are they?" she asked.
"I don't know," the man replied apologetically. "The gate's still active; all indications read they should be through by now."
Frowning anxiously, Elizabeth turned back to stare at the Stargate, folding her arms as she waited for another few seconds for some sign that the gateship at the other side was going to respond before she finally raised her hand to activate her radio again. "Gateship one, this is Weir, what's your status?"
"This is Ford; it's good to hear your voice," the lieutenant promptly said over the radio, which at least assured Weir that the gateship was still intact at the other end of the wormhole even if it wasn't in Atlantis. "The four of us are still here, but… Markham and Stackhouse… are inside the event horizon."
Elizabeth's blinked in confusion.
Even with her limited knowledge of how Ancient technology actually worked, she was fairly sure that Stargates weren't meant to get into that kind of situation…
"Say again?" she asked uncertainly, after a brief glance at the current technician assured her that he didn't know how to respond to that statement any more than she did.
"Ma'am," Lieutenant Ford's voice continued, "Gateship One is lodged in the Stargate. Teyla, Dr. McKay and myself are in the rear compartment with the Colonel; he's in bad shape. Markham and Stackhouse are… in the forward section."
Elizabeth blinked in confusion.
She would be the first to admit that her knowledge of the technical details about how the Stargate worked would always be relatively basic, but she was fairly certain that something couldn't just travel part of the way into the Stargate without
"How did that happen?" she asked.
"We think it was one of the engine pods," Ford said after a moment's pause- during which she thought she heard someone else, most likely McKay, say something some distance away from the radio-, "but there's no way to be sure."
Going over that statement in her mind, Elizabeth thought that she understood the situation. From what she'd seen of the gateships, they were all equipped with two engines on either side that allowed for greater speed when flying, but automatically retracted whenever the ship was coming through the Stargate and returning to Atlantis. If an engine had been unable to fully retract before entering the Stargate, than the gateship wouldn't quite be able to fit inside the Stargate, and, as a result, the ship would be unable to move past the point where the engines were located…
"If I understand you correctly, you won't be able to access the flight controls?" she asked, clasping her hands together slightly as she spoke, already going over any possible way of dealing with this new dilemma. With the control console inaccessible, they couldn't simply pull out of the Stargate and try to enter the wormhole again, and they had no way of getting the gateship through without retracting the engines…
"Yes, Elizabeth," Doctor McKay's voice suddenly said over the radio, breaking her train of thought, "It's an extremely intriguing conundrum and one that I'd love to discuss with you in detail until this Stargate shuts down and this ship is cut in two-"
"Rodney," Elizabeth interjected as forcefully as she felt appropriate for the situation, "calm down."
"At which point of course-" McKay continued, apparently unaware or unconcerned about her attempts to speak to him.
"Rodney!" she yelled sharply, finally managing to get him to be quiet. "If I'm going to be any help to you at all, I need to catch up!"
Allowing herself a brief pause to make sure McKay had understood what she had just said, Elizabeth began to speak again. "Lieutenant Ford, back it up for me."
After a moment's silence, presumably Ford going over everything before he started speaking, the lieutenant began to talk.
"We couldn't I.D. the wraith base of operations from space, like we did the last time we were there, so we went to the same landing coordinates as before to get a closer look," Ford's voice began to say over the radio. "However, when we arrived at the location it was to discover that the entire base had vanished, leaving only a vast hole that we're assuming, for lack of any evidence to the contrary at the present moment, was the landing site for a Wraith ship; given that they hibernate for centuries, it's plausible that the trees that had been on it when we visited had simply grown there over time. We were forced to retreat after we were confronted by a group of Wraith scouts-"
"She hardly meant begin at the beginning!" McKay's voice suddenly interrupted, the scientist clearly growing frustrated with the lieutenant.
"This is intel she needs to know," Ford countered in a patient tone.
"And we have less than thirty-eight minutes-" McKay began to say.
"Hold on," Elizabeth asked, interrupting the scientist's yelling before he could go any further. "Why thirty-eight minutes?"
"Because that's the maximum amount of time a Stargate can remain open in non-relativistic conditions," McKay answered, sounding particularly frustrated at her attitude, as though he was telling her something that he expected everybody to know. "It's one of the more immutable laws of wormhole physics and oh my, look at the time. It's now more like thirty-five minutes. Are we all caught up?"
"I get it," Elizabeth said resolutely. "What do you need?"
"Help," McKay replied simply.
"All right," Elizabeth said, pausing briefly to think about her options before she spoke again. "Let me put… Kavanaugh, Grodin and Simpson in a room; see what they come up with."
"That's good," McKay replied. "And the Czech… the Czech… the Czech whose name I can never remember…"
"Doctor Zelenka?" Elizabeth asked for clarification.
"That's it," McKay said in acknowledgement of her statement. "We'll work it at our end."
"What else?" Elizabeth asked.
"We'll call you," McKay replied briefly. "Thank you."
With that, McKay terminated the radio link with Atlantis at his end, leaving Elizabeth standing in the control room just as Doctor Beckett entered the room, swiftly walking over to her with an anxious expression on his face.
"Where's my patient?" he asked.
"There's been a problem," Elizabeth replied briefly, before she placed a hand on the doctor's shoulder to move him along; he may not have any scientific expertise to solve the immediate problem with the gateship, but his medical knowledge could help them find a means of dealing with the problem of Sumner's current 'parasite'. "Conference room."
"Oh no…" Beckett sighed as he walked off, Elizabeth swiftly moving past him to talk to the technician.
"Keep a channel open with them at all times," she said briefly before she walked out of the control room to join the scientists in the conference room. "And turn that damn alarm off!" she called back over her shoulder before she left.
As Elizabeth began to walk towards the conference room, she was unaware that there was someone else watching the events unfolding in the control room, crouched in his usual place between the 'gate room and the gateship bay (He wondered if Elizabeth would be agreeable towards getting the name changed if he left her a note with his name for them; 'puddle jumper', he felt, showed a lot more imagination than 'Gateship') as he listened in on the conversation via a spare radio he'd taken from a storage room (A small crime, he admitted, but nobody would miss one radio set).
He hated to admit it even to himself, but when he heard the news about Sumner suffering from a medical emergency, a part of him had hoped that it was something a bit worse than an Iratus bug (Lieutenant Ford hadn't named it, of course, but it was the only thing he could think of that might cause a reaction like had been described over the radio). The man meant well, he understood that, but he was so damn paranoid about the motives of anybody who wasn't actively contributing to his efforts to defend the city that it was making him very hard to carry out his self-assigned role as the Pegasus Galaxy's guardian…
Even if it is giving me a reason to keep an eye on Elizabeth… a part of his mind reflected, before he forced it back down into his mind; this was not the time to think about that!
The important thing right now was that the 'gateship' (As they called it) was stuck in the Stargate, the expedition's military leader was dying, and he had just over half an hour before the thing was cut in half as the Stargate shut down.
Even in that scenario, the city would lose at least two people.
He wasn't going to allow that; with the Wraith active and Earth cut off from them due to his own actions- he really needed to see about providing them with the means to crack that code-, the expedition needed every man they could get if they were going to hold the city.
There was only one thing left to do…
Turning away from the sight before him, he began to hurry towards the one room in the city that held the gateship team's only guaranteed way back into Atlantis before time ran out.
