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: Timeline-wise, this takes place the night after the previous chapter, so they've just discovered the approaching Hive-ships and have agreed to discuss possible courses of action to take against the Wraith the next morning, spending the current night trying to think of the aforementioned plans
The Phantom of Atlantis
As she sat in her office that night, staring over files long after every other member of the expedition had gone to bed, Elizabeth wished that she could bring herself to focus more on the papers before her.
It was almost impossible to believe how much things had fallen apart in the last few hours since the Phantom had shot down that Wraith dart; with the discovery of no less than three Wraith hive-ships heading for them at a speed that left them little to no time to prepare any kind of defence, fear and anxiety was rapidly spreading throughout Atlantis, particularly given their continued lack of ability to contact Earth for reinforcements.
Reinforcements…
That was another thing Elizabeth didn't want to think too much about; their lack of any military-based allies in this galaxy. Their few truly successfully alliances with other cultures had all been based around nothing more than trades for food- commonly providing medical supplies and an offer of protection from future Wraith attacks in exchange-, but, as helpful as they'd been, none of those worlds had anything further to offer them than extra soldiers in the event of an attack. The only even remotely technologically advanced culture they'd discovered to date were the Genii- the Hoffans had inclined more towards biological research-, and even without the current tense relationship that existed between their two peoples the Genii didn't have much more to offer than some prototype nuclear weapons that weren't even fully developed yet.
Then, of course, there was the issue of Earth; no matter how much she tried to think of something else, in the end it always came down to their continued inability to send a message back to Earth. They'd tried to dial every safe Stargate address located in the Milky Way that they could think of- even resorting to some of the more uncertain ones in their desperation, such as the addresses for Chulak or that planet where SG-1's android duplicates had been created (She still couldn't quite remember the name of that one)-, but so far nothing had worked; the shield continued to activate and cut off radio transmission whenever the wormhole activated, 'snapping' into place before the unstable vortex could be expelled.
The science teams had done their best to shut it down, of course, but so far every attempt to crack the code that apparently controlled the shield had met with failure, and they still had a nearly limitless amount of possible words that could be used from the database. McKay had suggested trying to get rid of the shield by overloading it to prevent it from activating in the first place, but Elizabeth had quickly shot that down when the Canadian scientist had admitted that he wasn't certain if he'd be able to repair it afterwards; given their current inability to construct an Iris like the one used on the Earth Stargate, they would have been rendering themselves automatically vulnerable to invasion from the Stargate, and with so few advantages available to them already they were in no position to forsake something that potentially useful.
She just couldn't believe how frustrating it was; after spending the better part of the last year learning about the most incredible city the Ancients had ever created, exploring worlds and making contact with people like nothing Stargate Command had ever encountered back home (such as the Phantom, a traitorous part of her mind commented before she shoved that thought to the back of her mind; now was not the time to think about that!), they were going to have to run away and find some other planet to settle on, all because of a 'communication problem'…
"Doctor Weir?" a voice said over her radio, blinking Elizabeth out of her thoughts as soon as she registered the voice.
"John?" she said as she raised her hand to the radio, taking a brief glance out at the control room to make sure nobody was coming to talk to her; the current night shift only had a few technicians on duty rather than the larger number that would have occupied the room during the day, but it was still enough people that she wouldn't want to risk attracting attention to herself unless she had to do so. "What is it?"
"Can you come to the balcony for a moment?" John asked, his tone sounding slightly hurried; if Elizabeth didn't know John better she'd have almost assumed that he was scared of something. "I have… well, there's something I need to give you."
For a moment Elizabeth wasn't ashamed to admit that she hesitated- was she really going to voluntarily go for a meeting with a man when she only knew the basics about his past and his motives?-, but she swiftly pushed any such doubts aside; after everything that John had done for the city since they'd arrived, even if he hadn't proven himself completely to Colonel Sumner, he'd proven himself to her as far as she was concerned.
If he had something else planned…
Well, Elizabeth mused, as she reached into her pocket to make sure that the Ancient shield device John had given her so many months ago remained there, that's what this is for.
She might not like having to think of John as a potential enemy, but she had to at least try and maintain a detached attitude towards him if she was going to be a professional leader for the city…
She just wished that doing that was as easy as thinking it.
Shaking such thoughts out of her mind as she walked through the control room- briefly making a comment about needing some fresh air as she passed by the night staff- one of the advantages of being in command; nobody questioned some of the little things she did so long as she did nothing too unusual- before she walked out onto the balcony, closing the door behind her as she did so. She had barely been standing there for a few moments, looking up at the differently-starred sky with a silently reflective expression, before she heard a slight 'thump' behind her and knew that her 'guest' had arrived; he must have needed to make a slight jump from however he got around Atlantis to land on the balcony itself.
"You're here, then?" she said, turning to look at John with a slight smile, his long black cloak, as always, serving to conceal most of his body as he stood before her.
"Did you have any doubt I wouldn't be?" John countered, smiling slightly at her under his now-familiar mask as he walked up to stand beside her, before his expression became grimmer as he stared at her. "Particularly not with this latest turn of events…"
"The hive-ships?" Elizabeth asked, looking at the man now standing beside her for clarification.
"Precisely," John said, nodding grimly at her. "Trust me; those things are tough; I've been taking ships out into the galaxy for fifteen years and I've only taken out about five of them-"
"Hold on; you've defeated five hive-ships?" Elizabeth interjected, her hope renewed at this latest discovery. "Could you maybe-"
"Give you some pointers?" John finished for her, looking regretfully over at her even before she finished the sentence. "Wish I could, but it's not as simple as 'fire here and the thing blows up'; you've got to find the exact spot to hit if you want to cause the maximum possible amount of damage with the drone weapons- I was always out in the… gateships… when I fought them, so all I really had to rely on were the minimal drone weapons those things have to offer-, and those things are so large- not to mention the fact that I don't have any kind of 'plan' to point out where to aim at for your pilots before they get here- there's no way that any of your pilots could find that area in the kind of conditions we'd have to work with here."
"Conditions?" Elizabeth repeated curiously; even if it would be difficult to reveal the source of her information to Sumner, anything she could learn about Wraith tactics at this point couldn't fail to be useful. "What kind of… conditions are you talking about?"
"The Wraith never developed shield technology- given that their ships are fundamentally organic, it would have been difficult for them to incorporate that technology at best, and given that the Ancients' drone weapons are capable of penetrating any kind of defences it wouldn't really have accomplished anything in the long run-, but they came up with a pretty effective substitute," John explained, turning around to lean slightly against the balcony railing as he spoke to her. "In fights with other spaceships, their darts commonly fly around the hive ships in a kind of 'web' pattern to intercept any long-range weapons used against them; you try and use most conventional long-range missiles against them and you'll be more likely to strike a dart than to actually hit the hive ship itself. It took me a great deal of trial and error, combined with a lot of research- plus the fact that I had that whole cloaking thing to help me make sure nobody saw me-, to figure out what I needed to target if I was going to destroy those things, and I had the advantage of having practised a lot before I tried anything like that and possessing a fairly powerful Ancient gene… though I don't like to brag about it, of course."
"Of course," Elizabeth said, nodding in understanding even as she noted that one of the main theories about the Phantom had apparently been right; he did possess a powerful version of the Ancient gene (She knew that it might be a lie, but the casual manner in which he'd mentioned it suggested to Elizabeth that it was just something he'd grown so used to having that he barely thought about it any more). "So, in other words, we couldn't use your method ourselves because none of our pilots have the skill, control or training that you had when you were put in their position?"
"Yep," John confirmed, nodding with a slightly apologetic expression. "I mean, I might be able to show your men where to go, but I get the feeling Sumner wouldn't trust me in a gateship in a fight like that; with so many darts and gateships flying around up there, he wouldn't be able to keep an eye on me to make sure I'm doing what I 'should' be…"
For a moment, the Phantom simply stood silently on the balcony, staring out at the landscape before him as Elizabeth wondered what she should say at this point- his last comment certainly didn't make it easy for her; what did you say to a man who was so casual about the fact that he wouldn't be trusted?-, until he finally broke the silence. "Anyway, enough about that; I didn't just invite you out here because I wanted to talk."
"You didn't?" Elizabeth asked, looking at him curiously.
"Nope," John replied, as he reached into his cloak. "Actually, I wanted to give you something."
Before Elizabeth could ask why John wanted to give her another present so soon after the last one- her birthday had barely been a couple of weeks ago-, he had pulled out the object in question and tossed it to her, and she could easily see that it wasn't a conventional present, but what looked like a Life Signs Detector with an Ancient keypad.
"Uh… thanks," she said, looking at John in the hope that he'd explain the 'joke' behind the current gift.
"You're wondering why I gave you that, huh?" the man known as the Phantom said before the diplomat could ask the question herself, a slight smile on his face under his mask in a manner that Elizabeth was beginning to actually find kind of charming. "It's not the control pad that's the gift; it's what's in the pad that's what's important right now.
"What's… in it?" Elizabeth repeated, looking in confusion at the pad once more. "What do you mean?"
"It contains the computer program that features the only location of the password that will shut down the program I installed in the Atlantis computers that activate the shield whenever you attempt to dial any planet in the Milky Way galaxy," John replied, a casual smile on his face as if he was revealing nothing more groundbreaking than a weather report. "Just point it at the DHD- so long as you're within visual range of the DHD any other barriers are academic-, enter the same code you used to activate the grounding stations, and the program will be transmitted to the DHD and deactivate the feature that causes the shield to activate whenever you try to dial any planet in the Milky Way galaxy."
Elizabeth blinked in confusion.
"Hold on; a computer program?" she said, looking sceptically at him. "But we've already determined that the shield will be shut down with a password-"
"Which I programmed that device you're holding right now to select at random from the Ancient database when I originally added that particular feature to the shield's programming to prevent any Wraith from dialling Earth if they should gain control of Atlantis, subsequently leaving it in a safe place after programming it with an 'anti-Wraith-feature'," John explained, holding up a hand to cut Elizabeth off before she could ask any further questions. "A lot of effort to go to in order to get a password, I know, but it was the only way I could be sure I wouldn't give the Wraith the code if they somehow managed to find Atlantis and tried to torture it out of me; I couldn't give them what I didn't know."
"And that… 'anti-Wraith-feature' you mentioned this device possesses?" Elizabeth asked, looking uncertainly at the device in her hand.
"Oh, nothing to worry about; the thing's just designed to explode if anything with Wraith DNA tries to touch it to prevent them from using it to access Earth," John replied, smiling slightly at her before his face fell as a though occurred to him. "By the way, you'd better put it somewhere safe when you're done so that the Athosians don't get anywhere near it; I don't think it's that sensitive to Wraith DNA, but I'd rather not risk it-"
"Hold on; the Athosians?" Elizabeth asked, cutting John off as she glared critically at him. "What are you talking about; they're not Wraith…"
"Not completely, no, but a Wraith scientist performed experiments on some Athosians in the distant past in an attempt to improve the feeding process that resulted in Wraith DNA being introduced to their systems; that's how Teyla and some of her people are able to sense the Wraith when they're within range," John explained, his voice as casual as though he was revealing the latest weather report.
Noting Elizabeth's stunned expression at his latest revelation, however, John smiled reassuringly at her, raising one hand in a calming gesture. "It's not a major part of her genetic background, of course- Teyla isn't going to start wanting to feed on people or anything like that; she's limited to simply sensing the Wraith when they come too close due to her Wraith DNA allowing her to slightly sense their psychic network -, but I don't know precisely how sensitive the device is to Wraith DNA, and I'd rather not risk her setting it off and causing all kinds of awkward questions."
For a few moments, Elizabeth could only stare incredulously at the man who had just revealed something she couldn't believe.
Teyla and the Athosians had Wraith DNA…
"And… that doesn't bother you?" she said at last.
John blinked.
"Excuse me?" he asked, turning back to look curiously at her.
"Well… you fight the Wraith for… well, I'd say a living, but that implies you're getting paid for it… and you're not remotely concerned about the fact that you have someone with Wraith DNA in the city itself?" Elizabeth asked, looking at the man as she tried to gauge his reaction (The cloak and the mask really made it hard to read his body language, particularly in the current lighting). "It's just… well…"
"Given your prior experience with some military leaders you're wondering why I'm not instantly going all 'she's not human and must be banished from Atlantis', huh?" John replied, smiling in understanding at her as he shrugged. "Well, I don't deny that the thought of it freaked me out a bit when I first found out people like her existed, but after I checked over enough info in the Wraith lab where I learnt about them, I quickly determined that they're no real threat to anybody; the greatest risk is that a Wraith might be able to influence them over the telepathic network, and given how dormant the Wraith genes are that could only happen if one of them tried to deliberately 'hack' the network themselves."
"Right…" Elizabeth said, nodding thoughtfully at John's comments even as she inwardly thrilled at the implications of this latest discovery.
He didn't judge people by what they were… he judged them by what they did.
After so long dealing with Sumner's 'paranoia' when it came to anything Phantom-related simply because the Phantom was an unknown in this situation, or the mission reports she'd read while she was in charge of the SGC featuring references to people who were willing to do whatever it took to 'protect' Earth even if it meant hurting innocent people just because those people weren't 'human', it was…
Well, it was… nice… to meet someone who didn't care about a little thing like the other person not being entirely human.
"So… the Wraith don't know about this either?" she asked after a moment's pause, looking uncertainly at John as she tried to force such thoughts to the back of her mind; she had to stay professional.
"No, they don't; the scientist who carried out the experiment abandoned the project when he realised what had happened and every Wraith who knew about it assumed that the 'gift' would die out with interbreeding over the years," John replied, nodding briefly at her. "I found the lab where the experiments had taken place and managed to track the people he'd experimented on back to their home planets, but in general the results were always the same; there was no way for anyone to deliberately 'exploit' their access to the Wraith network unless they knew what they were doing, and even then they'd need to be in relatively close contact with a Wraith if they were going to have any chance at all of succeeding."
"I take it those exact circumstances weren't something that was particularly likely to happen?" Elizabeth asked, allowing herself a slight smile despite the seriousness of this latest discovery.
"Given the Wraith's habit of culling any inhabitable worlds that might be close enough to a hive-ship for the people in question to 'practise' their ability on… not really, no," John replied, shaking his head. "Besides, you have to take into account that most people wouldn't even realise what they were sensing; they'd just put it down to nightmares from the Wraith coming closer rather than them actually sensing the Wraiths' thoughts."
"True…" Elizabeth said, nodding briefly in acknowledgement of John's point before she looked back at him. "So… no point telling Teyla about this, I assume?"
"Not unless it becomes necessary for the city's continued survival to know what the Wraith are doing up there… and not unless you can come up with a way to mention it without revealing how you know about it," John added, once again assuming his 'don't-tell' tone of voice that he always used when asking her not to mention that she'd spoken with him.
"Anyway," he said, indicating the door behind him, neatly cutting off any further attempts Elizabeth might have made at asking why her continued status as leader was so important to him, "you'd better get back in there and get that program transmitted into the DHD as soon as possible; the way things are going, the sooner you can get some back-up here the better."
"But-" Elizabeth began.
"I've already modified the program to simply shut the shield down when the next attempted password after it's activated is entered; as far as the technicians are concerned, they'll have discovered the password themselves," John said, evidently guessing what she was asking before she'd even finished asking the question. "Don't worry; nobody will know that you or I had anything to do with the shield being shut down."
After another brief silence, Elizabeth slipped the small pad into her pocket and smiled at him.
"Thanks," she said simply.
"No problem," John replied, as he indicated the door once again. "You'd better get going; the air in Atlantis isn't that bad."
Allowing herself a slight smile at that little 'joke'- it wasn't much of one, she knew, but in a situation like this anyone who could feel comfortable enough to say things like that was all right in her book-, Elizabeth walked back through the door, leaving John standing silently on the balcony as she headed for her office, pulling out the control pad even as she sat down.
Here goes… she thought to herself, as she aimed the device in the direction of the DHD and tapped the relevant buttons…
AN 2: Well, that's the shield issue sorted; next chapter begins the events of this universe's version of "Letters from Pegasus", including a little confrontation I've been looking forward to writing for some while now…
