Chapter 17 (Elvis Vaghoon)
Elvis had a plan, and God help the Minbari. No one was going to destroy his facility today. He had spent most of his adult life planning and cheating his way to the top and now he planned to uphold that role to the best of his ability.
Staring at the console, the scavenger readouts were listed in mechanical font in front of him. Several scavengers had been damaged, others were offline, but scavenger 8127 was online and processing raw material at optimum speed. Time to give it something fresh to eat.
With a smile, he looked up at Elizabeth's question. Although she looked dashing herself, he took the time to examine her body and imagined her naked in front of him, the perfect curvature of her buttocks indicated that she was wearing a T thong, an image that excited him. At last he answered her.
"The scavengers are industrial resource gathering units." He tapped at his console and displayed a magnified image of a scavenger on one of the panoramic windows.
The maggot shaped machine had most of its body burrowed inside a large asteroid, eating away at the core and spewing large nuggets of processed material into space towards the complex. The machine seemed content in its small quest, but Elvis had a new mission for it.
"The scavenger processes the raw material in the asteroid. It refines it and then compresses it into nuggets, which are then catapulted back to this facility. I intend to redirect its course straight for the Minbari cruiser." Elvis felt like giving Elizabeth his own refined product; she looked very inviting in her form-fitting uniform.
As Garibaldi approached, Elvis knew that he was still harbouring ill feelings about his relaxation time with Talia Winters. But both parties knew that survival of this facility warranted teamwork.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking? If we give scavenger 8127 a new target, like that cruiser, it'll burrow into it and disable the thing. The scavengers are made out of solid material and designed for rough environments. I think it should withstand the Minbari weapons for a prolonged time."
Elvis didn't need any more convincing. He issued orders. "Scavenger control, redirect scavenger 8127 towards the Minbari cruiser, set to full speed."
Still, with his great idea now in motion, Elvis felt vulnerable. He stood in the middle of the control room looking over the entire facility. Such a fragile place and one shot could kill everyone.
But he was on a space facility on a spinning rock attached to two huge cities. How much more protected could he get? Damn the rest of the crew, if he needed to escape, he would with his waiting escape pod. But he was required to defend his hard work first and the scavengers were the key.
Sitting in their chairs, everyone waited in silence as the magnified image of the scavenger showed it reversing out of its burrowed hole.
The horrid looking machine, all in brown and rust slowly spun in place and exposed its grinding metallic teeth. Spinning at high speed, vomiting out excess amounts of asteroid that had failed to go into its refinery chambers, the scavenger's mouth reminded Elvis of an alien creature he'd seen on the news feeds. All black and horrid looking, it looked like an insect with millions of teeth, waiting to chew on anything.
Now a confirmation call popped up on Elvis terminal under the scavenger's highlighted name. It turned red, indicating it was looking for its next target. Perfect.
Within striking distance, the scavenger traversed the sea of space within minutes. It looked all puffed up and ready to devour the blue menacing ship. Now it's payback.
As everyone held on to hopes that the scavengers direct attack approach would work, the Minbari vessel spotted the huge machine and turned to face it.
The sleek refined body armour looked appealing to the industrial machine, which was half its size and looked terrible. Elvis didn't see the point in painting the huge scavengers and over the years, patches and scars appeared all over their hulls. Most of the asteroid's own material was plastered on the hull of this one like plaque on someone's teeth.
A flash of hot light stabbed into the mouth of the scavenger, and everyone backed away, all in awe. Would the scavenger survive?
The Minbari fired again and again, and small metal blades spun off into space. Scorch marks resided on the hull, but the armour was too tough. From the initial attacks, Elvis knew that the Minbari could not stop this thing. It was a massive industrial machine designed for grinding. Elvis grinned. "This is the moment! The Minbari will be sorry."
The scavenger ploughed straight into the sleek refined material of the Minbari cruiser and chomped away the entire front section off the cruiser, devouring everything; it was like a hot knife in butter.
Like a maggot burrowing into an apple, the scavenger wiggled and jiggled, creating a hole in the middle of the vessel. Girders and chunks of hull broke off and drifted in space. Vast cracks formed on the skin, stretching all around the cruiser like a cracked egg. Elvis finally placed his hand to his chin when the lights blinked out on the enemy ship.
This was Elvis's cue to do something. "Scavenger control, retract the scavenger and put it on standby. Salvage and security teams, prepare to board that vessel."
Elvis left his station and climbed the metal stairs, walking into Elizabeth on the way. He glanced at her backside and licked his lips at the smooth bend of her cheeks. She gave him a dismissive stare before walking to the other side of the room. He did not like that. I'll deal with you later.
"Garibaldi, dispatch the teams. I want them on the Minbari cruiser and to strip it bare. There might be tons of technology onboard and we are not letting this opportunity escape. Once we have everything we need, command that scavenger to devour it." Just before he left the command deck, he finally said, "You may kill whoever is onboard."