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
As Elizabeth stood in the control room, McKay just behind her and Genii soldiers all around her, she was unable to stop an at least slight feeling of distaste as the commander of the Genii forces walked past them, staring at the technology around him in the same manner that she had seen on the faces of the rest of the expedition when they had arrived; eager to see and learn all that they could about this new location, while at the same time trying to remain professional.
It could be considered arrogant on her part, Elizabeth knew, but it just seemed… wrong… for somebody outside the expedition to be looking at the city in that manner without being invited. The expedition would have freely shared their technology with the Genii if they had been willing to form an alliance, but instead this man and his fellows had felt the need to take by force what they could have acquired in an alliance. The expedition members might not be as advanced as the Ancients themselves, but their civilisation had still spent the last seven years learning about some of the discoveries that the race had made and the history that had motivated them; just because they didn't know everything about Atlantis didn't meant that they didn't know enough to safely live in the city.
Plus, there was the fact that the Genii were still learning about nuclear power; at least when Earth had begun to learn about the Ancients' genetic evolution and some of their other scientific advances they'd already gathered the basic scientific principles behind most of the technology. Even if they couldn't duplicate the Ancients' feats themselves, they at least knew enough to understand the possible consequences if they got into something without knowing what they were dealing with. Given the Genii's relatively low level of technology they'd almost certainly end up starting something they didn't know how to stop because they hadn't advanced far enough to stop…
The sound of footsteps coming from another corridor distracted Elizabeth from her train of thought, prompting her to look in the direction of the sound as Colonel Sumner walked into the room, hands up and gun in the hand, clutching the barrel to make it clear that he wasn't going to try and shoot the Genii.
"Colonel Sumner, I assume?" the commander said, looking at the Colonel with an almost mocking small smile on his face. "Lay down your weapon and come up here- and be assured, my men will shoot if you attempt anything."
Even as Sumner glared at the man before him, Elizabeth was relieved to see him obey the directive despite the evident distaste on his face; like her, Sumner was acknowledging the value of waiting for a better moment rather than trying to attack the Genii head-on in their current situation. As one of the Genii soldiers collected his P-90- emptied of ammunition, Elizabeth noted; at least that limited the possibility they'd have to deal with someone using it against them if they tried to fight back-, Sumner's hands were bound behind his back before he was marched up to the control room to stand beside her and McKay.
"Who are you?" Elizabeth asked, turning to look pointedly at the apparent leader of the Genii forces as her own military commander took his position beside her.
"Commander Acastus Kolya of the Genii," the man replied, as he continued to look around the control room. "This Atlantis is extraordinary– more than I ever imagined."
"What have you done with the rest of our people?" Sumner asked, glaring pointedly at the Genii commander as he turned to face the man in question.
"I'm quite sure they have no idea we're even here," Kolya replied, not even bothering to look back at Sumner as he walked past them to study one of the computer monitors.
"Then they're safe?" Elizabeth asked.
"Yes," Kolya replied briefly, continuing to study the screen before him- currently showing what appeared to be the weather patterns that had caused the storm, Elizabeth noted; she wondered if he even knew what he was looking at- without looking at her.
"How were you able to bypass the shield?" Sumner asked, looking at the Genii commander with only the slightest trace of anxiety on his face; as always, any potential security problem was his top priority.
"With a time-tested combination of strong drink and a weak mind," Kolya replied, still studying the screen before him; Elizabeth didn't need to be a diplomat to recognise Kolya's obvious attempt to demonstrate his control over the situation by declining to even bother looking at them.
"There was a time when our two peoples considered becoming allies," she said, walking forward slightly; if Kolya wanted to maintain control, Elizabeth was going to make sure he didn't have it easy doing so. "Why are you doing this?"
"You're in possession of supplies we vitally need," Kolya replied, finally turning around with a frustratingly neutral expression on his face; it was as though he felt that it went without saying that the Genii would need the supplies in question more than the Atlantis expedition. "Hand them over without difficulty and we'll leave peacefully."
"Or else what?" Sumner asked, stepping forward slightly to stand beside Elizabeth and look more pointedly at the Genii commander; even with his hands bound, the Colonel could still create a very imposing figure if he had to do so.
"We're both intelligent people, Colonel Sumner," Kolya replied, a smug little smile visible in the right corner of his mouth as he walked forwards once again. "I'm sure there's no need for me to demonstrate once again the… strength of my resolve."
"Which supplies did you have in mind?" Sumner replied after a moment's pause; judging by his still-resolute stance, Elizabeth had little doubt that he was simply asking the question to better establish the situation they were facing at present rather than out of any kind of inclination to give Kolya what he wanted.
"All of your stores of the C4 explosive, all of your medical supplies, the Wraith data device you stole from my people, and one of your ships," Kolya replied simply.
Elizabeth didn't even trust herself to speak; the casual manner with which Kolya practically demanded them to hand over half their possessions made some of the Goa'uld she'd met back at the SGC look humble by comparison. He didn't even seem to consider or care that they might need them as well; as far as he was concerned, if the Genii needed something, nothing else mattered so long as they got what they wanted.
"Is that all?" McKay asked, the sarcasm evident in his tone; evidently he had less of an inclination to restrain himself in the current situation.
"Look," Elizabeth cut in, stepping forward slightly in an attempt to make the Genii leader understand what she had to tell him, "what you're asking for is not easy. We've had to divert a lot of power in order to prepare for the storm. The armoury's safety doors have shut, which means we can't-"
"Just so we're clear," Kolya said simply, holding up a hand to stop her mid-sentence, "I know a lie."
"Your request just isn't reasonable," Sumner countered, stepping forward slightly to stand in front of Elizabeth as he addressed his Genii opposite. "Your culture's still learning about the full dangers involved in radioactive explosives; you can't possibly have developed enough to require our entire supply of C4, and as for medical resources-"
"You're in no position to tell me what is reasonable and what is not," Kolya interjected, glaring back at Sumner; Elizabeth wasn't sure if the interruption was because Kolya didn't like being argued with or he didn't like the implication that the Genii weren't important enough to merit all the things he'd just asked for.
"How do we know that you won't kill us once we give you what you need?" Elizabeth said grimly, daring the man before her to try and give her any kind of reassurance that he would leave them alive.
"You don't," Kolya replied simply.
The simplicity of that statement reaffirmed Elizabeth's opinion of the man; evidently, as far as he was concerned, they should simply feel 'honoured' to have the opportunity to help the Genii, even if they ended up dead after 'doing their part'.
"Please show my men where they can find what they are looking for," the Genii continued, evidently unaware about her recent thoughts about him. "Colonel Sumner, you will remain with these men; be assured that, should you attempt anything, they will have no hesitation about shooting you."
As the young woman- judging by McKay and Sumner's reaction to her, Elizabeth was guessing that she was the 'Sora' that had been mentioned in the Genii mission reports- stepped forward to grab Elizabeth's left arm and hustle her away with a couple of soldiers, another group of Genii taking Sumner down towards the gateroom to better keep an eye on him, Elizabeth sent up a brief prayer to whoever was listening that Kolya wouldn't do anything permanently damaging to Rodney; the last thing she needed was for the expedition's chief scientist to be crippled because an arrogant git couldn't take 'No' for an answer.
The subsequent walk between the gateroom and the storage rooms was more of a haze in her mind than anything else; Elizabeth had spent most of her time trying to come up with a plan that would allow her, Sumner and McKay to get out of their current predicament without risking loss of life or losing the city, only to come up with nothing that she could use. She retained enough awareness of her surroundings to point out when they came up to the medical storage room- as much as she hated having to hand over the entirety of their medical supplies, if she at least pretended to go along with the Genii's demands at the moment there was still a chance of getting out of this situation-, but it was only when she finally reached the storage room where the Wraith data device had been kept that she turned her attention back to the immediate group of soldiers that remained with her. By this point there were only two- a dark-haired man with a beard and maybe a couple of inches in height over her and the woman Elizabeth was increasingly convinced was Sora-, but Elizabeth knew her limitations well enough to know that even these two were too much for her to handle, given her lack of professional training.
"The device is just over there," she said, indicating a table off to one side as she opened the door. "Just give me a moment, and I'll get it out."
Seemingly barely even registering her comment, the woman and the bearded man entered the lab behind her, the man moving over to study some of the computer displays while Elizabeth moved over to the table where the case containing the Wraith data device was stored, moving it onto the table just as the woman approached her.
"Where is Teyla Emmagan?" the woman said after a moment's silence, during which Elizabeth's gaze alternated between her and the case that was now before her.
"You know Teyla?" Elizabeth asked, looking inquiringly at the woman for any clue that her original assumption about her identity was correct.
"Is she here?" the woman interjected, her face displaying a cold, ruthless expression that did little to reassure Elizabeth. "In the city?"
"No, she isn't," Elizabeth replied.
As the woman looked away with a slightly disappointed expression, Elizabeth knew that she'd been right.
"You must be Sora," she said, trying to sound sympathetic despite her current situation. "I read the Genii mission report; I'm sorry about your father."
"He'll be avenged," Sora replied simply; the implication that her need for revenge went without saying left Elizabeth even more uncomfortable.
"Teyla didn't kill him," she countered, feeling the need to at least try and defend her friend in Teyla's own absence; after the woman had answered so many of her own questions about the Phantom, to say nothing of the aid she had provided Colonel Sumner as a member of his team, Elizabeth hated the idea of simply allowing Sora to blame Teyla for something she had no control over.
"No," Sora replied in an almost sarcastic manner, as though she felt that Elizabeth was insulting her intelligence. "She left him to die."
"She had no choice-" Elizabeth began.
"Are you finished?" Sora interrupted angrily, glaring coldly at her.
For a moment, Elizabeth allowed herself to look regretfully at the younger woman- was it possible that she was simply trying to deal with her grief over her father's death by transferring the blame for the action to Teyla rather than admit her own feelings of failure to herself?-, but shook it off and turned her attention back to the case before her. As much as she wanted to help, she was a diplomat, not a psychologist; even if Sora had been willing to ask for help, it was doubtful that she could have provided much.
Besides, from what she'd seen of Kolya so far, Sora's response had left her starting to wonder if arrogance was part of the Genii's nature almost as much as it had been part of the Goa'uld's infamous genetic memory; they seemed almost incapable of accepting any evidence that suggested that they weren't the most important people in the Pegasus Galaxy, and, by extension, that any views other than theirs were the right ones.
"All of the information we downloaded from the Wraith ship is still on this device," she said as she removed the Wraith data device from its case, subsequently handing it to Sora and the bearded soldier.
As Elizabeth and the soldiers she had escorted earlier arrived back in the control room, she noted with only slight surprise that Colonel Sumner was still being kept under guard down in the main part of the gateroom near the Stargate; evidently they had been made aware of the storm that was currently approaching them and saw little sense in dividing up their forces unless they had to do so.
It was only when she entered the control room and saw McKay standing in one corner with his hand clutched over his right arm around the elbow, blood staining his fingers and sleeve, that she broke her stride, hurrying over to stand beside the Canadian scientist while the Genii soldiers walked towards Commander Kolya.
"Ah, you're here," McKay said, smiling and wincing practically simultaneously as she examined his arm, barely registering the Genii soldiers coming from the direction of the armoury with a distinct absence of weapons; right now her more immediate concern was making sure that one of her few remaining allies was in good shape.
"What did they do to you?" she asked, wishing that Sumner was over here rather than down in the main gateroom; he might not have been a doctor, but surely as a soldier he'd have to know something about battlefield medicine in case he was injured during a mission.
"I tried to keep my mouth shut, I tried, I just- I couldn't" McKay said in a rapid tone of voice, clearly almost desperate to say his piece, before trailing off as he looked at something behind her. Turning around, Elizabeth was only partly surprised to see Kolya standing there, holding a radio in his right hand as he looked critically at them.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked.
"I honestly have no idea," Elizabeth replied honestly; what Kolya was doing with a radio when he'd been after the C4 was a complete mystery to her.
"It's a radio," McKay said, as Kolya turned his attention back to the radio; Elizabeth could almost have sworn that he was enjoying the opportunity to tell Kolya what to do. "The arrow points to the 'talk' button."
Staring at the Canadian scientist in an impossible-to-read manner- Elizabeth could only hope that McKay hadn't made things worse for himself by talking back like that, Kolya raised the radio to his mouth and pressed the button.
"This is Commander Kolya of the Genii," he said simply.
"I wish that I could say it is a pleasure to speak to you, Commander, but that would be a lie," an unknown voice said from over the radio; a quick glance at McKay was all that Elizabeth needed to do to confirm that he didn't recognise the speaker either. "You might appreciate knowing that the C4- and, as an added bonus, the Zero Point Module- have been transferred to a safe location that you will be unable to discover no matter how much time you have available to you, meaning that, right now, you have nothing but your hostages to bargain with… and I can assure you, if you want what you came here for, you should be prepared to bargain if you want to get out of this city in one piece."
If the situation had been less serious, Elizabeth would have laughed at the suddenly shocked expression on McKay's face when the voice revealed that he had moved the ZPM. As it was, however, the implications of his concern- had the presence of the ZPM played a more central role in his calculations for the power necessary to generate the shield than he had let on at the time?- did little to comfort her in their current plight.
"If you agree to allow the hostages to gate offworld unharmed," the voice continued,"I will grant you access to the C4 supplies and you may depart with what you sought; if not… well, I am sure you have learned about the storm currently bearing down on us."
"Indeed," Kolya replied, a slight smirk as he spoke. "Just as I am also aware that, while this 'Zero Point Module' of which you speak is responsible for the city's power supply, it is not entirely necessary for the plan that Doctor McKay has concocted to save the city-"
"And, let me guess, you wish me to deactivate the final grounding station and then depart, leaving the technology of the Ancestors in the hands of the Genii while the expedition members are left to fend for themselves?" the voice interjected, sounding almost bored as its owner spoke to the commander. "A tempting offer in its way, but I must decline; even if morality did not prevent me from abandoning the expedition like that, I have too great a claim to this city to abandon it to the likes of you."
"You and your people have arrived in this galaxy barely months ago, and you dare to believe that you have a greater right to this city than we who have lived here our entire lives?" Kolya retorted, a sneer on his face. "Your arrogance is-"
"I am not one of the expedition, Commander," the voice interjected. "I was here long before them, and have allowed them to remain-"
"You have 'allowed' them to remain?" Kolya interrupted, his tone clearly demonstrating his disbelief of the words that he had just heard. "Who are you that you believe you have the right to decide who 'should' remain here?"
"Come now, Commander," the voice said over the radio, the speaker sounding almost amused as he spoke, "you cannot honestly have expected to mount an assault on my city and not encounter me; even without the knowledge of my encounter with your people during that attempted culling a few years back, I have, after all, gone to not insignificant lengths to ensure that my name and the pertinent details of my history are known throughout this galaxy in my campaign."
"What do you mean?" Kolya asked, looking critically at the three expedition leaders before him as though asking them for answers, despite the fact that Elizabeth, for one, knew that she had none to give. "Who are you?"
"I am the Phantom of the Ancestors, Commander Kolya," the voice stated, its tone low as it addressed the Genii commander. "And believe me, if those hostages are harmed, you will make me very unhappy."
For a moment, silence dominated the control room, all of those listening to the radio conversation apparently stunned into silence- Elizabeth knew that she was, at least; the Phantom was actually speaking in their defence?-, before Kolya spoke again.
"Your claim to be the Phantom is obviously false," he said, the now-familiar arrogance once again evident in his voice. "If you were the true Phantom, you would side with us over these invaders-"
"I have allowed the Atlantis Expedition from Earth to remain in this city only because I know that they will use its technology for the benefit of those who cannot defend themselves in this galaxy," the voice countered, the speaker's tone now shorter than it had been earlier; evidently he resented Kolya's attempts to disprove his claims. "Your people, on the other hand, attempted to force me to remain with you after I had done nothing but act in your defence when the Wraith came to your world; I merely sought to inquire if you required any further aid, and you attempted to imprison me unless I gave you exclusive access to my technology."
"The Genii are the most advanced race in this galaxy-" Kolya began.
"Technologically speaking, your abilities are impressive, yes, but morally your goals leave a significant amount to be desired," the Phantom replied; Elizabeth could almost have sworn there was a slightly teasing tone to his voice as he spoke at that moment, even as his solemn tone made it clear that he still considered their actions repugnant. "You are willing to sacrifice other civilisations if it means that you survive, you attempt to steal from those who have what you require even if they are willing to share some of it with you, and you betray and lie to those who should be your allies against the Wraith. I will make this simple, Commander; either you permit the Atlantis expedition to remain and depart with only some of the C4, or I will guarantee the destruction of this city, regardless of whether or not I am still within it. I shall meet you at the last active grounding station to discuss terms; Doctor McKay shall inform you where it is. Come there, alone and unarmed, and we can attempt to decide on terms for an arrangement that will be mutually satisfactory; is that acceptable to you?"
After a moment's silence, Kolya nodded.
"Very well," he said simply. "I shall see you there."
With that he terminated the radio connection and looked over at two of the soldiers. "Go to the grounding station and eliminate the man you find there."
The soldier he had just spoken to hesitated.
"But sir…" he said, looking awkwardly at the Genii commander, "if it is the Phantom-"
"It is not the Phantom; it is merely a member of this expedition attempting to intimidate us into surrender," Kolya countered, glaring resolutely at the man. "Now go to the grounding station and eliminate whoever you find there, or I shall take you outside the city and lock the doors."
The soldier nodded and departed, followed by one of his colleagues, leaving Elizabeth and McKay to simply look anxiously at each other.
Elizabeth might not have been certain what McKay's view on the Phantom was, but she also knew that, right now, he may well be their only hope to get out of this situation alive while also retaining control of Atlantis; if nothing else, the speaker- assuming it was the Phantom; she didn't recognise the voice, but it wasn't like she'd memorised the voices of every single member of the expedition- made it clear that he preferred having them remain in control of the city rather than the Genii.
The only question was, would whatever he was planning prove to be enough to turn the tide in their favour? She doubted that he actually intended to surrender the city, of course- what he'd said to the Genii commander made it clear that he disliked their actions and attitudes towards the rest of the Pegasus Galaxy as much as she did-, but she still had no idea what he was planning to do instead…
As he stood between the fourth grounding station and the door that connected it to the rest of Atlantis, his long cloak blowing in the wind and his favoured stun-blaster weapon in his right hand, he studied the Life Signs Detector he'd picked up from the jumper when he'd sent the message to the remaining would-be evacuees back on the mainland- unfortunate acronym, of course, but it got the job done and he'd never been able to come up with anything snappier himself-, and noted with only slight disappointment that there were apparently two people near him rather than the one he'd been expecting.
So much for the diplomatic solution… he mused to himself, looking reflectively at the grounding station controls now before him; he knew how to turn them off, of course, but until he'd managed to get Kolya to talk to him he was reluctant to give up his only viable bargaining chip, so for the moment the station would remain on until he'd determined what these two new arrivals were going to do.
For a moment he contemplated trying to get Kolya to call off this crazy attack by telling him that the odds of any Genii possessing the Ancient gene were so slim as to be non-existent- in all of his travels throughout this galaxy he'd only encountered a few worlds where the inhabitants had the ability to use Ancient technology, and on those occasions there had been specific evidence that Ancients had remained on that world to have some kind of influence on their culture-, but he swiftly decided against it. Given what he'd seen of Kolya's attitude, the man would probably just assume that he was lying and say something about how he was the arrogant one to assume that the expedition were closer relatives to the Ancients than the Genii people were; right now, since this attempt at diplomacy clearly wasn't going to work out, he'd just have to take these guys out now and go back to his original plan of using the threat of leaving the grounding station active to force Kolya to listen to his terms.
After waiting for a moment or two to see if they took any action only to be met with nothing- evidently they were waiting for him to activate the grounding station before they actually started trying to stop him-, he crept around to the other side of the grounding station in an attempt to see his current opponents, subsequently moving towards the door when he'd determined that he couldn't see them from that angle to press himself up against one edge. For a moment he waited, his eyes fixed on the screen in his hands, but when one of the dots before him began to move he quickly spun around the corner, firing a red blast at the man that sent him to the ground in a heap with a decent-sized smoking hole in his chest. As the other Genii soldier hurried forward, he turned and ran towards the nearby railing, hoping to get a better shot at the other man while providing himself with a decent shield, only for any hope of that idea working out being dashed when the Genii opened fire and struck the control console for the grounding station.
SHIT! he swore inwardly as he dived over the railing before him, spinning around mid-jump to fire a quick blast at his opponent- a tricky skill to learn given his cape, of course, but something he'd picked up thanks to the practice he'd put in after he started wearing the thing-, sending him to join his colleague. Quickly picking himself up, he ran back towards the grounding station, but only required a cursory glance to confirm what he already knew; the bullets that his would-be killer had just fired had wrecked the panel beyond his own ability to repair it.
Growling low in his throat, he walked over to the nearest dead Genii, yanked the radio communicator off the man's wrist- he still had the radio he'd used earlier, of course, but what he had to say would be more effective coming from a Genii radio-, and raised it to his mouth.
"Allow me to explain where you messed up, Commander Kolya!" he yelled into the radio over the roaring wind, internally torn between anger at the damage Kolya had done and glee at what it did to the Genii's chances to take the city; call him self-centred, but if Elizabeth and her people couldn't have the city, he was going to make certain that the Genii couldn't. "Firstly, you lost two of your men in a pointless attempt to take me down. Secondly, those idiots damaged the control panel before I could deactivate the grounding station, which means that you may well have doomed this entire city. Thirdly, you have just lost all of what little credibility you had with me!"
After a moment's silence- during which he thought he heard McKay's voice over the line; evidently the man was just as angry at what had just happened as he was-, Kolya spoke once again.
"You killed two of my men," the Genii commander said simply.
He couldn't believe it; the city was facing imminent destruction because the Genii soldiers had suffered from a serious case of itchy trigger fingers and destroyed the one piece of equipment they needed to even have a hope of coming through this- particularly since he had no inclination to let these guys have access to the ZPM, even if it meant Atlantis was destroyed in the storm-, and all that this… idiot could focus on was two men that had been killed in self-defence?
"You already killed two of the expedition; consider this conflict even and leave!" he roared over the weather.
"I don't like even," Kolya replied.
"I am not finished yet!" he said, wishing that Kolya was there right now so that he could punch the bastard in the face.
"Neither am I," Kolya replied coldly. "Say goodbye to Doctor Weir, blasphemer."
His blood ran cold, and it wasn't from the 'blasphemer' comment (He'd encountered more than one world where people actually prayed to him for protection- he generally tried to stay away from those ones as they just made him uncomfortable- and he was certain that Kolya wasn't one of them; the guy was just trying to remind his soldiers that they 'couldn't' be facing the 'real' Phantom); the commander had just managed to precisely target what he would freely admit was his main weakness without even trying.
"The city has a self-destruct button!" he yelled, hoping desperately that this would be enough; he couldn't let Elizabeth die…
"You hurt her, I'll activate it!" he continued; he knew that he was beginning to sound desperate, but then Elizabeth Weir had made him do a lot of things he wouldn't have done for anyone else since the expedition had first arrived. "And then nobody will get Atlantis!"
"Even if it exists," Kolya replied coldly, "you need at least two senior personnel to activate it… and I'm about to take one of them out of the equation."
With that, the radio fell silent, leaving him staring desperately at the small device in his hands.
"Kolya?!" he yelled into the speaker, pressing the button as he tried desperately to attract the commander's attention. "Kolya?!"
When his pleas were still met with nothing but silence, he gritted his teeth and tried another tactic; as much as he hated to do this, it was the only thing that might even remotely tempt Kolya not to go through with his last threat.
"You can have a ship!" he said, the desperation in his voice hopefully drowned out by the volume he had to reach to be heard over the wind that now surrounded him. "I'll fly it out of here for you myself!"
After silence met his plea once again, whatever remained of his rational side finally snapped.
"KOLYA!" he screamed desperately into the radio. "DON'T DO THIS!"
He knew that losing control right now was the worst thing he could have done, but with the life of the most remarkable woman he'd ever met at stake right now, rational thought was pretty much out the window.
Even as the rain began to pour down on him, making his cloak heavy with water and leaving faint drips around his mask's eyeholes, he continued to stand in silence, praying that the Genii commander wouldn't do what he'd just threatened to do, even as the silence made it increasingly likely that his newest enemy had carried out his threat.
He couldn't let this happen… he couldn't lose her… he'd only just got her back after almost two decades of waiting… he couldn't lose her…
"How is this for credibility?" Kolya's voice suddenly cut in over the radio, breaking his train of thought; he wasn't even sure how long he'd been standing there waiting for an answer. "Doctor Weir is dead."
For a moment he was silent, his mind almost unable to process the three simple words he had just heard.
Elizabeth was dead…
The woman who had come to mean so much to him in such a short space of time, the only woman he would have truly lived for in a galaxy that had so far given him nothing but things to die for, the woman who had given his entire existence meaning where it had once had nothing, both when he had first arrived in the city and when she had first arrived…
She was dead.
He had failed her.
After he had waited so long for the chance to see her again, she had been taken from him before he had the chance to truly reveal how much she meant to him…
Behind his mask, his eyes narrowed as he clenched his empty hand, rage burning behind the silver metal that had so long covered his face he could barely even recall what had once been underneath it.
Fine.
If the Pegasus Galaxy wanted him to be the Phantom he had become rather than the man he might have been, he would give them the Phantom.
All that might have inspired him to try and be human once again had just been taken from him anyway…
"Congratulations, Commander," he said coldly, raising the radio to his lips once again. "You have just accomplished something that only the Wraith have done before now."
"Which is?" Kolya retorted arrogantly.
"You have earned my wrath," he stated simply. "Tell your followers to pray to the Wraith, because the Ancestors will not be able to save them now; thanks to your actions, the Genii have just forsaken all rights to the protection of the Phantom."
With that said, he terminated the radio connection, turned around, and ran back into the city, one of his guns already drawn as he studied his Life Signs Detector for any trace of the Genii.
Commander Kolya had killed Doctor Elizabeth Weir.
It was time to 'thank' the commander for giving him a reason to let out the beast within.
Even if it meant tearing this city apart, not a single Genii would leave this planet alive…
And he would take particular care to make Kolya's death a slow one.
AN: Just to assure you all before I start receiving death threats, Elizabeth is still alive, just as she was in the show; Kolya is, as ever, just being a bastard and trying to hurt his enemy. Oh, and for anyone wondering, yes, the gun the Phantom uses here against the Genii soldiers is the same type of weapon as Ronon's gun, but he is not Ronon Dex; his true name will be at least partly revealed in the next chapter or two
