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  PAX BRITANNIA

  DARK SIDE

  By Jonathan Green

  Pax Britannia

  The Ulysses Quicksilver Books, by Jonathan Green

  Unnatural History

  Leviathan Rising

  Human Nature

  Evolution Expects

  Blood Royal

  Dark Side

  Anno Frankenstein

  Time's Arrow

  The El Sombra Books, by Al Ewing

  El Sombra

  Gods of Manhattan

  Pax Omega

  An Abaddon Books™ Publication

  www.abaddonbooks.com

  [email protected]

  First published in 2010 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.

  Editors: Jonathan Oliver & David Moore

  Cover: Mark Harrison

  Design: Sam Gretton & Oz Osborne

  Marketing and PR: Rob Power

  Head of Comics and Book Publishing: Ben Smith

  Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

  Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley

  Pax Britannia™ created by Jonathan Green

  Copyright ©2010, 2015 Rebellion Publishing Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

  Pax Britannia™, Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.

  ISBN (EPUB): 978-1-84997-281-9

  ISBN (MOBI): 978-1-84997-282-6

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  For Andy Taylor - best of men

  Dear Ulysses,

  By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye, but this letter will just have to do. I never was very good with farewells. Besides, I didn’t want to hang around and give you the chance to dissuade me. This is something I should have done long ago.

  Things are getting too hot for me round here. I’m an idiot, I know, but I’ve got myself in deeper than ever– than hopefully you’ll ever know. So fate forced my hand, you might say, and it was time to leave.

  I’ve gone off-world. Like I say, I should have done this long ago, rather than go and bring all my troubles to your door. As if you don’t have enough of your own!

  Anyway, don’t try to come after me. After all, the empire needs you. And don’t worry – I’ll be alright.

  We’ll see each other again, when things have cooled down a little, I hope. But in the meantime, have a nice life.

  Your brother,

  B

  P.S. – And if anyone comes looking for me, don’t let on, there’s a good chap.

  PROLOGUE

  The Time Machine

  FLASHBACK...

  Ulysses Quicksilver regarded the wan, shrunken figure buried beneath the blankets covering the bed and asked, “How’s he doing?”

  “All right, I suppose, all things considered,” Emilia Oddfellow replied, gently mopping the old man’s brow with a flannel. “Anything’s an improvement on being dead.”

  “You’ve got a point there. And how are you doing?”

  Emilia took a moment to answer.

  “Better.”

  In the soft candlelight of the bedchamber she looked more tired, more overwrought, more resolved, nobler and more beautiful than Ulysses had ever seen her.

  He suddenly felt uncomfortable, as if he were intruding. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

  “No,” Emilia said sharply, her voice loud in the pervading stillness of the room. “Stay. Please?”

  There came a muffled moan from the bed as the old man stirred.

  “What’s that, father?” Emilia asked, putting her ear to his mouth.

  “Is he here?”

  “Who?”

  “Quicksilver,” Alexander Oddfellow managed before his words were forced to give way to a bout of phlegm-ridden coughing.

  “Yes, Ulysses is here.”

  Half opening rheum-encrusted eyes, the old man turned his head to look at Ulysses. A palsied hand appeared from beneath the covers and Oddfellow beckoned him over.

  “Hello, old chap,” Ulysses said, approaching the bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Never mind that.” The irritation in the old man’s voice was evident. “I must speak with you alone.”

  “Father?”

  “Please leave us, my dear.”

  Emilia looked ready to protest. Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes. “Very well. I’ll be out in the corridor if you need me.”

  “Understood,” Ulysses said. He felt her pain, but he was also keen to hear whatever it was that Oddfellow had to say.

  A moment later he heard the door close softly behind Emilia.

  “What is it, old chap?”

  “You know me of old, Quicksilver,” the old man said. Ulysses nodded. “And I know you. I know for example that you’re not entirely the dandy playboy you make yourself out to be. I know of your government connections, whereas, I believe, Emilia does not know how involved you are with the defence of the realm of Magna Britannia.”

  Ulysses smiled sheepishly. “I think you’re right. It was that secrecy that drove a wedge between us.”

  “But now is not the time to tell her either,” Oddfellow warned. “There is still action that must be taken to bring this matter to an end,” he wheezed, before the coughing consumed him again.

  “But it’s over, isn’t it?” Ulysses pressed. “You’re whole again; free of the Sphere.”

  “Would that it were over,” the old man said, gasping for breath. “Would that it were.” He shot Ulysses a sinister stare from beneath hooded eyes. “You now know what that thing in the basement is?”

  “Yes. I mean, it’s an astonishing achievement! An experimental teleportation device. It’s an incredible feat of scientific invention, Oddfellow.”

  “It was slow progress at first,” the old man said, the suggestion of a smile shaping his mouth, “but then I got myself a sponsor and, with the necessary financial backing, I was really starting to get somewhere. But then certain things came to my attention – nothing major, just niggling doubts – and I began to suspect that... how shall I put this?” He broke off, as the coughing took hold once more.

  “Go on,” Ulysses urged.

  “Well, that certain malign agencies had taken an interest in what I was doing and were funding the project, intent on getting their hands on the fruits of my labours. You know the accident that trapped me inside the transmat’s containment field?”

  “Of course,” Ulysses said, one eyebrow raised in suspicion.

  “Well, it wasn’t entirely an accident.”

  “You were set-up? It was a booby-trap?”

  “Something like that. I believe it was the work of...” Oddfellow paused, lowering his voice to a whisper, even though there was no one else present to hear. “An agent of the Nazis.”

  “Really?” Ulysses was incredulous. He knew that the Nazis were still an underground power in Europe, with their hooks in other parts of the world too, but he hadn’t had anything to do with them himself within the British Isles.

  “You must believe me!” Oddfellow pressed, his voice suddenly loud again. “Because if I’m right, now that I am free of the Sphere, it won’t be long before they m
ake their move.”

  “Who is this agent?”

  “I don’t know – that’s the trouble. They could be here, right now, in this house!” The old man sounded desperate, on the verge of panic. “But they cannot be allowed to get their hands on my machine. I got as far as destroying all of my notes associated with the project and was preparing to destroy the machine when that so-called ‘accident’ occurred.”

  Ulysses fixed Oddfellow with a penetrating stare, the pieces of the puzzle finally beginning to fit. “What do you want me to do?” he asked, with cold purpose.

  “You must destroy the Sphere, so that no-one can ever use it as a weapon or to further any evil plan for dominion.”

  Ulysses didn’t need to be told twice. If the old man believed the device was a danger to the safety of the realm, and needed to be destroyed, then that was what would happen.

  OUTSIDE THE ROOM Ulysses found Emilia pacing the corridor. She turned to him, her eyes full of questions.

  “Stay with him,” he told her, “and keep the door locked.”

  Deaf to her protestations, Ulysses raced downstairs to find the other guests gathered in the library once more.

  An eerie sense of foreboding sent an icy chill crackling down his spine, turning his skin to gooseflesh. Sitting in the same leather-upholstered armchair he had favoured earlier that evening, was the corpulent philanthropist, Herr Sigmund Faustus. Dressed in a tweed suit, in the manner of a country gent, fingers steepled in front of his face, he regarded Ulysses from behind the lens of a monocle.

  “Mr Quicksilver,” he announced solemnly, “it would appear that you have walked into – how do you say? – something of a situation.”

  Ulysses tensed.

  “Oddfellow truly made a deal with the Devil when he fell in with you, didn’t he Faustus?”

  “Oh, but you are mistaken,” the German railed, double chins wobbling in indignation.

  A bark of cruel laughter from the corner of the room caused Ulysses to snap his head round in surprise.

  “Not as quick as you thought, are you, Quicksilver?” Daniel Dashwood sneered as he emerged from the shadows gathered within the corner of the room. Other than for the expression of dour aloofness on his face Emilia’s cousin was a handsome man, athletically lean, his dark hair slicked back with lacquer. The gun he held in his hand was ugly by comparison, and trained on Ulysses.

  Ulysses considered his own pistol. He was aware of the weight of it in the holster under his arm, but he left it where it was, hands by his sides. If he were to go for his own weapon now, Ulysses was under no illusions as to what would follow. Dashwood would shoot first and ask questions later, he was sure of it.

  In a split second he had scanned the room. From left to right around the library, waiting in anxious anticipation, were the parapsychologist Wentworth, Sigmund Faustus, his aide, Ulysses’ own manservant Nimrod, the quaking, all-but-forgotten medium’s assistant Renfield, Wentworth’s ghost-hunting partner Smythe, the quaking butler Caruthers and then the pistol-wielding Daniel Dashwood.

  “But Herr Faustus really hit the nail on the head there. This is what you might call something of a situation.”

  With a barely perceptible nod to Ulysses to make his intention plain, Nimrod threw himself at Dashwood, displaying greater agility than his grey hair and apparent age might suggest. But before he could reach Emilia’s traitorous cousin, and before Ulysses could make the most of Nimrod’s diversion, Smythe, standing between the manservant and the turncoat, sprung into action himself. A vicious punch to the face floored the old prize-fighter in an instant.

  Dashwood’s aim didn’t waiver. His eyes still fixed upon Ulysses, he gave another bark of harsh laughter and tensed his finger on the trigger.

  “I believe you’ve met my colleagues – my partners-in-crime, as it were – Mr Smythe and Mr Wentworth.”

  Ulysses said nothing but continued to watch Dashwood, hardly daring to blink in case he missed the one moment’s opportunity he needed.

  “Very useful they are too,” Dashwood went on. “Particularly when it comes to cobbling together a containment field focusing device from what little I was able to salvage from my rather ingenious uncle’s notes. They’re also dab hands at setting up little ‘accidents’, shall we say.

  “Although, of course, they might not have been so hasty to arrange one in particular if they had realised that uncle had already made moves to stop anyone following in his footsteps. But now we have both the inventor and his invention intact, thanks in part to you, Quicksilver. So what need have we now of cremated blueprints?”

  Obviously already considering himself victorious, the conceited Dashwood saw no reason to keep any element of his schemes secret any longer. He had revealed to Ulysses the how and the why, certain that there was nothing that the dandy could do to stop him. And unfortunately, with Nimrod out of action, he appeared to be right.

  “All that remains for me to do is tie up a few loose ends.”

  Dashwood’s finger tightened still further on the trigger, easing the mechanism back, the barrel of the gun aimed directly at Ulysses’ chest.

  With a cry, the flabby Faustus launched himself out of his chair with surprising speed. Startled, Dashwood turned, amazement writ large across his face, as the fat German barrelled into him.

  The discharge of the gun was loud in the close confines of the library. Faustus gave a grunt and tumbled forwards onto Dashwood. It was the opportunity Ulysses had been hoping for. He went for Wentworth and sent him crashing to the floor with a well-aimed blow to the stomach, which he followed up with a double-handed blow to the back of the neck.

  There was an audible crunch and Ulysses looked round as Smythe cried out. Nimrod had had his revenge. Smythe lay howling, curled in a ball on the floor, blood pouring from his broken nose.

  Dashwood lay motionless, beneath the bulk of Oddfellow’s sponsor.

  “Nimrod, with me!” Ulysses shouted. “We haven’t a moment to lose!”

  Ulysses leading the way, the two of them raced back down the cellar steps and into the abandoned laboratory.

  The Sphere squatted there on its claw-footed stand, as tall as a man and half that again, the machinery glowing faintly with what little power remained in its storm-charged reserve batteries. The concentric, yet incomplete, rings of the giant gyroscope remained motionless, the broken rings describing a spherical void at the heart of the machine. Thick bundles of wires sheathed in vulcanised rubber trailed from the strange sphere to the control panel of a logic engine. It was a malevolent presence in the candle-pierced gloom of the cellar. And it was still on.

  The last time it had been activated – to release Alexander Oddfellow from within the confines of its containment field – had drained the potential energy collected by the directed lightning strike. But no-one had thought to turn it off again afterwards.

  “We have to destroy this thing,” Ulysses said, suddenly in awe of the broken sphere.

  “I do not mean to sound impertinent, sir,” Nimrod said, “but how do you suggest we do that?”

  Ulysses scanned the control panels of the device and the stilled rings. “There must be a way to overload it. Sabotage its controls or something.”

  “But overload it with what?”

  “Ahh...” Ulysses faltered. Hardewick Hall’s generator was still down. “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”

  Ulysses darted to the control panel, frantic eyes searching for a solution. Shadows moved across the wall behind the device and, acting on instinct, he flung himself behind the logic engine.

  The retort of the pistol was dulled by the damp stone acoustics of the cellar. There was a crack as the bullet pinged off the control console, shattering a glass dial. A second shot rang out and Ulysses heard it smack into the gyroscope itself.

  He risked a glance around the edge of his sturdy shelter. The three scoundrels stood at the bottom of the steps. Smythe had a bloody handkerchief clamped to his nose. Wentworth and Dashwood were gasping f
or breath having both been badly winded. But Ulysses couldn’t see Nimrod. He had doubtless taken cover when he heard the felons dashing down the steps into the cellar.

  However, Ulysses couldn’t let their presence halt his mission. It was all the more important now that he destroyed the Sphere and stopped the traitorous Dashwood and his lackeys from getting their hands on it.

  Grasping the thick trunking that connected the control panel to the machine he gave a sharp tug. He heard a tearing metal sound and felt something give at the other end of the cable. Teeth gritted he heaved again and was rewarded by a spray of sparks as a bundle of wires came away from the back of the gyroscopic frame. But other cables still connected the Sphere to the logic engine, in some unnatural imitation of the umbilical cord connecting an unborn infant to its mother’s placenta.

  As Ulysses reached for another bundle of wires, he saw Dashwood level his pistol at him once again. Distant thunder rumbled over Hardewick Hall.

  “Now I’ve got you,” Dashwood snarled.

  Scintillating electric blue light exploded throughout the laboratory as the broken rings of the Sphere began to spin. Dashwood threw a hand over his eyes against the retina-searing glare.

  “Lightning never strikes twice, my arse!” Ulysses exclaimed and ran for cover.

  Eyes narrowed to slits against the brilliant light pouring from the spinning Sphere, Dashwood dropped his shielding hand and searched for his target beyond the edges of the coruscating glare. The shadows there appeared even darker now in contrast to the blinding whiteness. But there was no sign of Ulysses.