[BOOK IS COMPLETE]
Inquisitor Stavrakis has returned triumphant. The last 10 years of his life spent hunting the Tyranid menace. But an Inquisitors job is never done, as a new and even deadlier threat emerges, pitching Stavrakis into another violent...
The Inquisitor could feel the warmth of the sun spreading across his aching limbs. He felt cold and stiff. He had been lying prone in a dense patch of brush for the past two days yet he didn't risk moving. He was on a mission to hunt one of the deadliest infiltrators known to man and to fail his mission by moving, even slightly, was beneath him as a fully fledged Inquisitor. The meagre forest surrounding him was silent as the light of dawn filtered through the mist. The little movement he did allow himself was tightening his grip on his hunting rifle. He moved his thumb to the tiny sensor where his thumb would normally rest and deactivated the cover on his rifle-sight. The sight was made to his specifications by the Mechanicus Enclave in the local sub-sector. Looking through it, he saw a negative colour presentation of his surroundings. His heart stopped. While the pict-image he saw through the sight was a negative, any heat that showed would stand out as a bright blob of bloom, and right in the left corner was a red-green patch. His prey had arrived. He closed his eyes, attempting to calm his beating heart. He had not expected success as soon as this. He felt hot and flushed with Triumph. He opened his eyes.
He opened his eyes. The forest mist was lifting. The morning chill was abating. The blotch of heat on the sight of his rifle shifted. The inquisitor fought to calm his memories and emotions. This was the first time in months anyone had an opportunity like this. He closed his eyes again, fighting the maelstrom of images that flared in his eyelids. He breathed in deep, and exhaled slowly. The beating of his heart lessened. He breathed again. His heart calmed again. His mind still whirled with mismatched memories and emotions. An agonizing minute later, and his mind and heart were at rest. Throughout his career, he had drilled and fixed into his subconscious thought patterns and techniques designed to clear his mind. To this day, they had never failed him. He opened his eyes. His target reared up as the morning sun took its warm hold. The mist had almost completely evaporated, and the pale red sky looked crisp. A vibration in the air reached him, and he noted that the trees were also waking up. Psychically active trees, reacting as the sun started raising the temperature, broadcast their lives to those who could listen. The Inquisitor could not and did not want to. His prey dropped out on all fours. It shivered and shook as the last of its chill left it. The Inquisitor noted the peculiar activity. To this date, he was confirmed to be the only human in existence to track the Tyranids in this manner. If anyone had accomplished this before him, then the Inquisitorial datafiles he accessed were incomplete. Or any who tried were already dead, a conclusion he sincerely hoped wouldn't apply to him. When stalking a Tyranid Lictor, anything is possible. The Lictor had warmed itself enough now. The Inquisitor saw the blotch through his scope become more active. He blinked one last time.
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The rifle in the Inquisitors hands roared and bucked wildly. The Lictor was thrown back in pieces. The Inquisitors rifle had been handcrafted by an aggressive Tech Mechanicus cult on Mulciber, and was chambered in highly volatile Inferno rounds. If his target was not chunked to pieces by the heavy caliber, they would have been enveloped in a superdense chemical fire. The Inquisitor raised his head above his sight and watched the smouldering corpse sear and sizzle. He sighed. Revenge felt... odd. For years, he had used revenge as a driving force for his life. He had made Inquisitor for the sole purpose of being sent to the fringe of the Hivefleet, to hunt down the Lictor that had robbed him of his Mentor(and had such a knack for infiltration that is had assassinated a fair number of planetary governors and other key personnel)... and now all of that was complete. He had stalked, and scurried and bled and killed for what seemed like his entire lifetime now to accomplish what had taken him but a simple squeeze of the trigger. Simple. He smiled at that, as if stalking a specific Tyranid Lictor through multiple battle zones, planets and different fleets would ever be simple. He sighed again and got up, shaking off the worst of the brush that clung to his clothes. He unhooked his camo cloak to holster his rifle. It was a magnificent piece of craftsmanship, thought of and designed for his use alone. The use of a mechanicus controlled forge and their expertise had cost him a fair bit, but he thought this moment worth it. For all official purposes, it was an Astartes scout-pattern sniper rifle, a high velocity slug thrower that he had paid the suitably learned Magos quite a sum to modify. The Inquisition could take his Rosette from him, and revoke his status as Inquisitor if they had a peek at what was "beneath the gun-metal". Before sliding his rifle back into the leather harness he wore, he released the clip of ammunition and made sure to store it in a non-reactive housing. If these went off near him...
