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 John sat in the co-pilot seat of the jumper- he might call it a gateship for the sake of the others but he would always think of it as a puddle jumper-, casually giving a few quick pointers to some of the new 'gateship pilots'- as everyone else referred to them-, he couldn't help but feel a bit wistful at how things had turned out since he'd made contact with the colonels only the day before.

Neither of them were exactly happy that he'd just dropped into their lives like this, of course- his fingers kept on drifting towards the gun he still wore underneath his cloak every time he turned his back on one general or another, his senses constantly alert for any sign that anyone was going to try something that they shouldn't-, but as he'd pointed out, they didn't have much choice but to accept his presence; he was the person best qualified to use the Ancient technology that they needed to defend themselves.

Right now, John was mainly just grateful that they were listening to his requests and had permitted Elizabeth to remain in a position of authority; his request might have been at least partly motivated by a desire to ensure she kept the position she'd worked so hard to make her own, but at the same time it was good to have someone in command that he knew was on his side…

"So… that's it?" the pilot- one of the new ones Everett had only just brought with him to Atlantis; he hadn't managed to pick up the guy's name yet- asked, looking uncertainly at the masked man off sitting alongside him.

"Yeah, that should be enough practise for the moment," John confirmed, smiling slightly at the man as he briefly went over the recent lesson in his mind; they'd covered most of the essentials on how to manoeuvre the craft, and the man had shown a certain creative aptitude for it that could be useful in helping him teach others, but in the end he was limited by the strength of the man's ATA gene…

Ah well, he reflected, as the man turned around to head back towards Atlantis- John spared a few moments to confirm that the men he'd been advising over the radio were still following him before they continued on their way-, at least they're picking up the essentials.

He just hoped that the extra weapons they were installing would be enough to turn the tide if the darts came in too close; with the ZPM down to only around fourteen percent- and he strongly doubted he had the time to convince Sumner and Everett to let him go and recover some extras from his ZPM stockpile; given the distance he'd need to travel via jumper to reach his 'storeroom' even after going through the 'gate, they'd probably be more inclined to think that he was trying to run away rather than help them- he really wasn't that keen on activating the shield and losing that power until he had absolutely no option left to him…


"So," the Phantom said as he stood at the top of the conference table- looking back, Sumner wasn't entirely sure how they'd ended up with this masked man in a position of authority in these matters, but somehow he just wasn't able to actually do anything about it-, studying the layout of the city before him, "we've got those railguns you brought stationed around these areas, capable of basically firing a hell of a lot of bullets at a very rapid rate once the targets are within visual range, correct?"

"Yeah…" Ford said, nodding at the man before him, his stance making it clear to anyone with any degree of military knowledge that he was just waiting for a chance to hit the man before him.

"Useless when the shields are up, I hope you realise; it's programmed to allow ju-gateships through easily, but nothing else can enter or exit the city once that shield's activated," the Phantom continued, looking up at the colonels before him before a slight smile appeared on his face. "Other than that, once the darts get in close enough the guns should be enough to handle them; with the population of the city concentrated in these central areas the Wraith would probably prefer to focus their attention on gaining access to the central tower as rapidly as possible… I think."

Everett blinked.

"You 'think'?" he repeated, turning to look pointedly at the Phantom.

"Well, it's not like I've had to defend Atlantis fairly often; I always kept it underwater before now, and whenever I was helping to protect other cities I was mainly relying on their natural defences to provide shelter," the Phantom clarified, looking back at Everett with an equally critical stare. "I'm trying to adapt my tactics, but even with superior technology available to us here you have to take into account that Atlantis being on the ocean does limit the advantages offered by natural terrain…"

Everett could only glare back at the Phantom in frustration before he began to speak again, addressing Elizabeth, evidently recognising that he couldn't go any further with that line of questioning because he couldn't come up with an effective comeback for it; the Phantom's comment about the tactical disadvantage was an accurate one.

"We've deployed the warheads just as… the Phantom… suggested; half above us and half awaiting deployment pending later developments," the new colonel said, waiting a moment as though hoping that Elizabeth Weir would tell him to deploy the other warheads like he clearly wanted to- with being kept 'in the loop' she could technically retain the authority to counteract the Phantom's 'orders'- before he continued. "Unfortunately, given our limited drone supply, attacking the hive ships long-range is currently not an option at this point; I was thinking that the Phantom could help our pilots-"

"Find the weak points on the hive and tell you where to shoot?" the Phantom finished, sighing slightly as he looked back over at Everett. "It's not as simple as that, Colonel; did you miss the part where I told you that hive-ships are at least partly organic?"

"So?" Sumner asked, looking critically back at the Phantom.

"So, are you honestly telling me that if I hit you both in the same part of the body with the same amount of force, you'd both react exactly the same way to the damage?" the Phantom pointed out, his arms folded as he glared over at the two colonels. "Hive-ships are living beings, and thus their weak and strong areas vary from ship to ship; they might share some essential similarities, but even without taking individual 'training'- for lack of a better term- into account, the damn things have practically evolved so that those areas are well-protected, even if they're not always protected to the same extent. It's not always as straightforward as pointing a gun at a certain location and firing there; you've got to get used to quickly assessing where to hit to cause the maximum amount of damage with the minimum amount of firepower, and in this case there's just not time to show you where to aim in the time available to us."

"Which leaves us with the nukes as our best bet to take out the ships before they get too close," Everett concluded, nodding briefly as though the Phantom had just confirmed what he'd already known before he glanced over at Sumner. "In the meantime, it would probably be best to prepare our shorter-range defences in case some darts manage to get through; Colonel Sumner and I have already established rail guns around Atlantis in the event that those 'Dart' ships get in close enough to pose a threat."

"And, as I said, it's a good call so long as we only use them when the shield isn't active, otherwise we run the risk of shooting ourselves with the damn things from the potential ricochet; I'm not certain how the shield would react to bullets being used against it from the inside," the Phantom added, before a thought occurred to him and he glanced pointedly at the two generals. "Don't forget to deploy the Athosians around the guns to act as protection; they might not be able to operate the things to the same extent as the marines, but anyone here will tell you that the Athosians are very good at the hand-to-hand thing."

Once again, Everett's expression made it clear that he didn't like the Phantom's advice- like the Phantom himself, Everett clearly saw the Athosians as untrained amateurs interfering with the professionals-, but, with no real means of voicing his opinion without risking losing the Phantom's assistance when he needed it most, he simply nodded in acceptance of the suggestion.

Before anything further could be said, an alarm suddenly sounded throughout the city, prompting the four commanders to exchange puzzled glances before Chuck ran into the room, looking anxiously at the group around him before his eyes settled on Elizabeth (A fact that she couldn't help but feel slightly satisfied about; even in a military situation, the members of the expedition looked to tell her what was wrong rather than anyone else).

"We have incoming," he said, clearly shaken at this latest turn of events (Not that there hadn't been a great deal going on the last few hours to put him in that state; the reaction to the news that the Phantom was taking a command role during this siege alone had raised quite a few surprises when it had first been announced to the general population of the city). "I don't know where they came from; they just… appeared all of a sudden!"

"How many?" Everett asked urgently.

"Hundred plus," Chuck said, shaking his head in confusion as he looked at Elizabeth. "I swear, I don't know how we missed them-"

"Because the sensors didn't register them as a threat until now," the Phantom clarified, shaking his head slightly as he looked over at Everett in frustration. "These aren't Wraith ships we've got coming for us; don't you remember what I told you about asteroids?"

"You said the Wraith triggered events that looked like natural disasters-" Sumner began.

"By which I meant meteor storms; what did you think I meant, that the Wraith would send something through the Stargate to trigger an earthquake or something like that?" the Phantom countered, shaking his head in frustration as he looked back at the screen; even as they'd been speaking the mines and the asteroids had both vanished from the screen, the mines detonating to leave nothing behind but residual radiation that.

"Well," the Phantom said after a moment's silence, Everett and Sumner briefly stunned into silence at their first line of defence being eliminated so casually, "that's one way to get the job done, I suppose."

"You knew that would happen?" Everett asked, looking in frustration at the masked man.

"In my defence, I did tell you that the nukes wouldn't work, I just wasn't expecting them to try that; plus, I wasn't certain how Ancient sensors would cope with that kind of radiation," the Phantom clarified, looking over slightly apologetically at the two colonels. "Of course, I admit I wasn't expecting them to actually unleash the asteroids this early- I must have given them more reason to be concerned about Ancient technology than even I'd expected-, but on the bright side, the bombs you did plant took all of the asteroids out before they reached us, and we've still got half of them to take out the hive-ships-"

"And how are we meant to get them up there?" Sumner cut in, looking over in frustration at the Phantom. "We're dealing with bombs, not missiles, and if you seriously think we're going to commit suicide to take them up in gateships based on your plans-"

"Actually, I was intending to send a couple of gateships up cloaked and under remote control from the chair; would that work out better for you, Colonel?" the Phantom interjected, his arms folded as he glared at Sumner with an expression of frustration that Elizabeth had long grown used to seeing on the faces of people who were dealing with McKay; wondering how someone who was allegedly so smart could be so stupid.

"And that'll work?" Sumner asked, looking inquiringly at the Phantom.

"We've still got around thirteen percent power in the ZPM even after all the testing I've been doing for you; it'll suffice," the Phantom said casually, before he glanced back at Everett. "You say the Daedalus should be here in the next couple of days?"

"Based on estimations of its speed when powered by a ZPM, all our engineers are fairly certain of it; you just need to allow for leeway given that the ship's never tried travelling this far before," Everett confirmed.

"Fair enough," the Phantom confirmed. "So, with that in mind, all we need to do is get the hive-ships in range and wear down the darts; given our relatively limited drone supply, I'd rather not use them until we know we're going to hit our target."

"The last time I checked those things were pretty accurate-" Everett put in.

"And the 'shields' of the hive-ships consist of the darts flying around them to intercept anything that might pack a big enough punch to damage the ship; do you really think that I can afford to release all of the drones we have left against those kind of odds?" the Phantom pointed out, shaking his head in frustration. "We've got more drones stored in Atlantis than we'd have in the jum- the gateships, but we still don't have enough to completely get through all the darts they'd be using against us, and there's no way I can maintain the fine control necessary to get a drone to the hive's weak spot in a combat situation like this…"

He shrugged helplessly. "Sorry, but with the way things are we're just going to have to partly bluff about the power we've got available to us if we want to get the Wraith to back off… and talking of which, I think we need to make sure your pilots and gunners are ready; after a show like that, the Wraith are going to want to come in as swiftly as possible while the radiation's still clouding our sensors."

Everett couldn't help but curse slightly at the realisation that the Phantom's comment was right; once again, the amateur had noticed what none of the trained professionals had.

Even the excuse that none of them were used to this kind of fighting- when the SGC had started out exploring the universe they'd been limited to more hit-and-run tactics rather than risking directly confronting spaceships, and even after they'd acquired the technology to build ships they'd tended to engage in ship-to-ship fights rather than trying to fight off ships from the ground- didn't excuse the fact that blocking an enemy's sensors to give your forces a chance to strike unexpected was an obvious strategy…


An hour or so later, their men all waiting at their relevant posts for the necessary call to action even as the Wraith appeared determined to outwait them, Sumner and Everett found themselves standing in the holographic information room, the Phantom standing behind the control podium for the room as he looked grimly at the two of them.

"You're sure you want to do this?" he asked, raising an eyebrow that was only just visible behind his mask (Sumner wished he'd take the damn thing off; how could you trust a man who wouldn't show you his face?). "It's not going to give you anything useful…"

"We'll be the judge of what's useful in this situation, Phantom," Everett said simply, looking pointedly at the man before him. "Show us what we want to see."

"If you insist," the Phantom replied, nodding briefly before he placed his hands on the console, causing the room's doors to close and its lights to dim before a vast blue-tinted hologram of what the colonels could only assume was the Pegasus galaxy- having never looked in detail at the stellar maps of this area neither of them could be sure- appeared above them.

"This is the status of the Pegasus galaxy before the Ancients encountered the Wraith," the Phantom said simply, looking at the two men before him as he spoke, clearly recounting a tale that he himself had already studied; the 'I told you so' wasn't explicit in his tone, but both colonels knew that it was there nevertheless. "The blue stars represent systems either inhabited by or protected by the Ancients. Then…"

He briefly returned his attention to the controls, and a wave of red began to spread out across the stars, beginning in one corner of the galaxy before it rapidly "This is how it looked after they fought for almost a hundred years."

"Until Atlantis was all that was left…" Everett muttered as he stared at the hologram above him.

"Quite," the Phantom said, before the hologram shifted to focus on one specific solar system, subsequently moving to bring the focus on one specific planet in that system that Sumner and Everett didn't need to be told was the planet they now inhabited.

"That's when the siege began," the Phantom continued, as the holographic planet displayed multiple Wraith ships converging around the world before them. "For several more years, the Atlanteans were able to hold off their attackers thanks to the city shield and superior weaponry- the weapon satellite system was really rather useful in that regard-, but the central problem of numbers remained; no matter how many Wraith ships they destroyed, more kept coming. They could win almost every battle, but they saw no way to win the war. So, they submerged the city, and left."

With that, the Phantom terminated the hologram, the lights coming up once again as he looked pointedly at the people before him. "You can't deny that they paint a pretty clear picture of our situation."

"You think this is a no-win scenario," Everett said simply.

"What I think is that they're going to come back even if we beat them," the Phantom clarified, looking pointedly back at them. "I don't believe in the no-win scenario myself, but this is one of those cases where the only way to win this fight is to not fight."

"From what we've heard you've been fighting them for over a decade-" Sumner began.

"And I've survived this long because I used hit-and-run tactics and only attacked them on a large scale when I could be sure I wouldn't leave any survivors," the Phantom countered, leaning slightly over the control podium to glare at Sumner. "Your men went into that Wraith hive-ship with virtually all guns blazing and no real idea what you'd find, and then you ended up with that Keeper interrogating Captain Gemmel-"

"Which we wouldn't have had to deal with in the first place if you'd just told us-" Sumner began.

"I've been on my own here for twenty years; do you really think I'd have lived this long if I was that willing to trust everyone I met?" the Phantom countered, a slightly bitter tone in his voice as though the current topic was particularly personal to him. "This is a dangerous galaxy we're living in, Colonel Sumner; if I started out assuming that everyone I met was going to be nice to me I'd probably have been dead long before any of you got here."

"You still should have contacted us once we knew what we were dealing with," Sumner countered, wishing he could come up with a better comeback.

The worst part was that he actually understood where the other man was coming from all too well; no matter how much he wished he could see a way to demonstrate the danger he knew would result from the Phantom's independent attitude and refusal to participate in the chain of command, he couldn't fault him for being cautious of new arrivals after spending so long operating on his own…

"What, and get locked up as a rogue element?" the Phantom countered, leaning further forward to better glare at the other two men. "Be serious, Sumner; I might have saved this city for your expedition on at least two occasions since you got here, but as far as you're concerned, I'm just a rogue cannon who shouldn't be anywhere near this city, and if you hadn't had the hive-ships to deal with I've have been stuck in a cell and pumped for information the second I showed my face. Right?"

For a moment, the three men could only stare silently at each other, the Phantom's ability to return Sumner and Everett's dual glares disconcerting the colonels almost as much as his mask, only for the temporary stalemate to be broken as the city's alarms began to blare.

"Control room," both colonels said, automatically reaching for their radios (Neither colonel had been comfortable with giving the Phantom a radio; he was under orders to stay with one of them at all times in the event that he felt the need to give orders).

"Sirs," the voice of one of the new marines said over the radios, "we've just detected a wave of darts, inbound."

"On our way," Sumner said simply, before he turned to look pointedly at the Phantom. "Get to the chair; we'll finish this later."

"Naturally," the Phantom said, as he turned to leave the room before glancing back. "So, which of you will be my 'chaperone' this time?"

"I'll do it," Everett said, glancing over at Sumner as he spoke. "You've got better experience with the city; the men would feel better with you in charge."

"Right," Sumner said, nodding at his old friend before his gaze returned to the Phantom. "We'll finish this later."

"I'm sure," the Phantom replied simply, before he turned around and walked out of the room with Everett, heading for the control chair room with a resolute stride.

Once again, Everett wished that he didn't have to work with such an insubordinate pain to get the job done…