Contents

Cover

Signal to Noise – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Signal to Noise

by C Z Dunn

Sister Agentha of the Order of the Fractured Cipher realised what she was listening to over the vox mere seconds before the eldar raiders sprang their assault. One moment she was standing next to Chaplain Gerataus on the bridge of the Black Templars strike cruiser Inevitable Retribution, the next she was sprawled unceremoniously across the deck as xenos fire rocked the Space Marine ship.

Blinking into realspace, almost three dozen of the dark craft discharged full weapon salvos against the Inevitable Retribution, though most of their firepower was reserved for the vessel accompanying the Black Templars, the Executioners craft Guillotine. Taken unawares by the aliens’ surprise attack, Guillotine’s captain had neither the time to raise its shields nor return fire and in the space of mere seconds the huge vessel was bleeding atmosphere into the void. Vast rents opened up in the hull through which poured manpower and materiel. The human crew and Chapter serfs perished instantly, their physiology no match for the ravages of open space, while the battle-brothers of the Executioners drifted aimlessly, their power armour life support systems preserving their existence.

Several of the smaller eldar craft broke off from the assault and targeted the survivors. No mercy was shown and the zone surrounding the two Space Marine vessels was soon filled with slowly dissipating balls of crimson and metal.

The Inevitable Retribution, by virtue of being further away from the point of the eldar’s realspace translation, did not take as many immediate hits and was able to raise its shields before catastrophic damage was inflicted. On the bridge, klaxons wailed and Black Templars and crew alike barked and relayed orders, getting fire teams to the sites of the most crippling damage and calling up replacement crew from below decks to take the positions vacated by those who succumbed to the initial assault.

Castellan Kaleb commanded the helmsman to face their ambushers head on. For tortuous minutes the massive vessel swung around, eldar craft harrying the ship with sustained barrages of fire that dissipated against the shields. Halfway through the turn, all those on the bridge witnessed the final demise of Guillotine.

Also attempting to turn and fight, the stricken ship had ponderously rotated, but this did little more than present its unshielded flank to the xenos raiders. Like hungry animals pouncing on a scrap of meat, the eldar lit up the void with the discharge from their weapons, raking the exposed side of the ship and setting off a series of detonations that culminated in Guillotine’s warp drive going nova. Despite their greater speed, not all of the eldar vessels were able to outrun the corona of immaterial energy, and several of them disintegrated as the raw stuff of the warp engulfed them.

‘Brace for impact!’ yelled the Castellan across the bridge, and Space Marine and Chapter serf alike gripped anything that was riveted down as the tsunami of Chaos energy broke against their shields and washed over the ship. For the second time in the space of minutes, Agentha slammed against the deck of the bridge, sustaining a deep gouge just above her brow.

‘Captain, damage report.’ The Castellan was rooted in the same position he had been before the wave had struck. The only other woman on the bridge besides Agentha, answered him.

‘Shields are down to less than ten per cent and warp drives were damaged during the initial assault. Praise His name that we did not suffer the fate as those unfortunate souls.’ Through the occulus, Agentha could see Guillotine slowly falling through the dust belt of the planet below, inexorably caught in the pull of its gravity well. The captain didn’t need to say that if the eldar came back for more, their chances of survival, let alone victory, were virtually nil.

Click here to buy 'Signal to Noise'.

A Black Library Publication

‘Signal to Noise’ was first published in the Black Library Weekender Volume II (2012) anthology, copyright © 2012, Games Workshop Ltd.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

Signal to Noise © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. Signal to Noise, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78572-704-7

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.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.