# The Inquisitor - short story



## Blackheart_101 (Dec 14, 2009)

Fluff addicts unite !!! I'm a begginer in 40k, I play Orks and this is my first short story about 40k in general. It's a bit long, but I hope you will enjoy. 

*The Inquisitor*

By: Blackheart_101

Strange they are, the caves of Maccarage. Spacious corridors of thick and suffocating darkness, yet on such a wonderful planet, home of the Ultramarines. Although a victory over the Hive Fleet Behemoth was achieved, the dark corners of this civilized world still hide dreaded secrets. The Fleet would not abandon so easily one of the prime worlds of the Imperium. An Exterminatus, in the time of siege, of course, was not an option. Even the Inquisitors, who would normally stop at nothing to destroy any threat, be it Chaos or Xenos, would not agree to that, agree to the loss of the home of the Adeptus Astartes. The Marines chased the Tyranids off their home world. 
Or at least they thought they did.

Claustrophobia gripped the four Acolytes after half an hour of advancement in the dark corridors. 
“Isn’t the first, or the last time”, thinks Theodor Machinatus, the Inquisitor. But he himself wasn’t in a better mood either; though his confidence was not hindered, due to the two Crusaders who walked beside him in this nearly tangible darkness. The mission was one of reconnaissance, carried out because a witness account stated that “some weird bugs were gathering inside the cave complexes.” 
But after advancing in the caves for half an hour, signs of life were nowhere to be found. 

On every fifty or so meters, the Acolytes planted explosives on either side of the rocky hallways, a safety policy, in case the expedition didn’t make it. Certainly not something that gave the retinue confidence.
After an hour in the caves, Inquisitor Machinatus noticed, or better yet, smelt something. A horrendous odor was spreading in the hallway. Just a few meters ahead and the source was found. Three Imperial guardsmen were lying dead, butchered perhaps being a more appropriate word, the only way of recognition a symbol on some un-ripped clothing. One of the Acolytes immediately lost the contents of his stomach. In an instant, silent growling was heard and a Genestealer jumped out from behind a rock, its diamond-hard claws ready to strike; to kill. And that was exactly what they did, after the Genestealer plunged them into the chest of the sick Acolyte, only to rip out his still beating heart while bones jutted out unnaturally from the unfortunate Acolyte’s chest. The body fell to the ground, the loud thud it produced served only to break the paralysis of the remaining members of this small retinue. Theodor and the rest of the retinue tried futilely to bring down the wretched creature, until a molten beam from the Inquisitor’s Inferno pistol, which Theodor affectionately called The Primarch, finally killed the Genestealer. But, in a wave of frustration, caused by the Crusaders’ lethargy, the Inquisitor turned around, wanting only to punish fiercely the cowardly knights.
There was no one to be found as the Inquisitor gazed into the abyss, his mind slowly falling apart. 

When he finally expelled from his mind the mesmerizing effect, the retinue chanted a prayer for their fallen comrades, and continued on, still oblivious to the Crusaders’ fate. 

The darkness in the caves thickened, so it found its place even in the hearts of the devoted Emperor’s servants. But they continued forward, driven on by blind loyalty and vengeance for their fallen comrades, cowardly Acolytes encouraged by the unyielding resolution of their Inquisitor. They couldn’t have turned around even if they wanted to. They would soon find themselves surrounded and outnumbered.
From the tangible darkness up ahead, bone-chilling sounds were heard by Theodor and his ill-fated companions: pooling of drool, deadly hissing and growling you hear just before a slow death in the maws of some terrible predator were just a few. Still emitting the deadly sounds, the Tyranids walked into the glow of the Acolytes’ torches. There stood, in the glow, a horde of Gaunts, scythes and Fleshborers at the ready, Genestealers clanged with their hook-like claws to the walls, waiting only to rip apart the retinue, Rippers covered the floor, their quantity so great that the cracked, dark brown stone under the Gaunts’ feet could not be seen. Immediately, an even larger group of beasts walked into the glow, but this time, from behind. The retinue was more than hopelessly outnumbered. The Tyranids halted, though, as if some greater entity was ordering them to be patient, to study the retinue, as if the greater entity was curious about the outnumbered prey. 
“This patience is strange, very, very strange...” Theodor thought. Even a Zoanthrothop would not display this kind of patience, unless, of course ... the Hive Mind was interested, interested in the passive emanations of psychic power that surrounded this ill-fated Inquisitor, although this was unknown by him. 
Silence was something the retinue was accustomed to, Theodor not being a very talkative man. 
But this silence, well, it was the silence before the storm. 
Another part of Theodor’s mind fell into oblivion.

With his rationality still undamaged, and without questioning his good fortune, the Inquisitor thought of the only way they could complete this mission. Explosives. But a Zoanthrothop had to be here, for the Hive Mind would not have been able to force this horde into patience without using a synapse creature. And that presented a problem in the Inquisitor’s plan. 
The Zoanthrothop would escape; he saw holes near the entrance of the cave complex.
Ravener holes. 
The synapse creature would have to die, or else the rest of the wretched creatures would also escape through the tunnels, with the higher organism leading them. Theodor devised his plan in a second, taking the torch of the nearest Acolyte and throwing it in the distance, hoping the torch could show where the Zoanthrothop was. As the torch flew towards its target, the glow revealed the true Tyranid numbers: hordes upon hordes of Gaunts, even more than you would think could fit in this wide corridor, their quantity wiping all hope from the Imperium's agents. The torch started to fall, with the Zoanthrathop nowhere in sight; but the Emperor was on the Inquisitor’s side, and the torch fell just below the feet; no, the tail of a horrendous creature: its upright, snake like body was topped off with an elliptical, bulbous and terribly swollen head, the head to which a beam of purest heat was fired with abnormal speed, heat from an Inferno pistol, the head covered with oddly-colored blood and bits of brain when the heat ray hit its intended target, the head that was now lying on the ground while the Tyranids were cutting up the remaining Acolytes, now stirred into a feral rage without the control of the Zoantharthop. But the Inquisitor was broken. Not phisically, but mentally. He saw what lies hidden in the dark corners of Maccrage, their overwhelming numbers; he saw his retinue chopped to pieces, witnessed the true power of the Hive Mind, its ability to halt the feral rage and hasty destruction that marked the whole Tyranid race, all simply because The Primarch was blessed by a Psyker, a good friend of Theodor’s, the Librarian Arminius Felixum, and the emanations from that blessing were what made the Hive Mind curious. 

Theodor would never get the chance to thank Arminius.

But the reason, the true reason why Theodor was losing his mind in some god-forsaken and forgotten cave, was the realization that his life was about to end in a most heroic way,that he would die. And no one would know about it.
It was then, that Inquisitor Theodor Machinatus went insane, the only rational thought left was about the explosives set by his now almost entirely butchered retinue. As the Acolytes were falling one by one, their flamethrowers futilely trying to reduce the Gaunts to cinders, he took off his leather, wide brimmed hat, holding it in one hand. He caressed, with his long fingers, The Primarch, his trusty pistol, without which his final plan would not have worked, and when the last Acolyte fell, grabbed hold of the long range detonator his followers had given him. 
With the simple push of a button, he sentenced these foul Tyranids, and himself, to death.

With a wide grin on his already pale and corpse-like face, he said, in an unnervingly calm voice: “Karamazov will be pleased.”
Theodor Machinatus died in hysterical laughter when continued explosions sent him to his demise. 

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Comments are more than welcome.
Constructive criticism is also welcome, would like to hear what everybody thinks about the story. Suggestions are also welcome.

P.S. If I made some fluff inconsistecies, let me know. I'm a begginer after all.
P.S.S If I spelled something wrong, also let me know.


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