Ace Darwin and the Battle of the Beer Fridge
Sarna News
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| Ace Darwin and the Battle of the Beer Fridge | |
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| Story information | |
| Author | James Bixby |
| Type | Short Story |
| Product | Shrapnel Issue 8 |
| Content | |
Contents
Plot summary
Ace Darwin was in 3057 in Solaris VII, making a Tri-dee advertisment for the drink Coolant Flush, which he is a partner in the manufacturing, and began telling how he became it.
Ace skipped the War of 3039, but found good work: as the war keep busy most of the bigger units, the little ones, like his own, Ace Darwin's WhipIts, have more and better jobs available. In 3044, his unit was in one of these, in a Lyran Commonwealth world, Anywhere, where his lance, composed by himself, Mariza Frost and Allejandro Cortez, with one BattleMech each, were providing security to a Interstellar Expeditions which were digging on an abandoned Star League era city. The Mercenary group watched around while the IE team dug up an office of the Bureau of Star League's Affairs. After hearing they've made a finding of Lostech, Ace descended from his Panther to look it. Ace's technician, Andrew Sevrin, found a fridge fillet with Coolant Flush. Sevrin was a total fan of the drink, and as the IE personnel weren't interested on the drinks, let them take them for himself.
Soon after, the local government heard about the Lostech finding and began demanding it to be given to them. The IE personnel refused, and days after, the government send police forces to attack the archaeological site, to seize it. Ace's people attempted to delay the attackers to buy time for IE's personnel to evacuate. A battle between their police and Ace Darwin's people followed. The cops SecurityMech was quickly disabled, but an attack of militia BattleMechs forced them to begin pulling back. After knowing than Sevrin had stay behind on the encampment, Ace, which was fighting a local Crusader, sent his three mates to fight some militia tanks, and went to rescue him. The technician insisted than Darwin's took also the fridge, which he did before escaping.
After successfully protecting the evacuation of IE personnel, while leaving the planet in their DropShip, Sevrin explained than the fridge was filled with Coolant Flush bottles and SLDF neurohelmets. He and Darwin's team tasted the drinks, which have turned bad, before giving Andrew a neurohelmet to every one of the Three MechWarriors. He said to be planning to use the drinks to reverse-engineer them and began producing them, as well as the neurohelmets.
After Ace finished telling his story, pointed than Sevrin succeeded, as he led the soda and tech conglomerate empire, which produced and sell Coolant Flush. Ace was his partner and also show man, making holovid advertising the drink. Darwin also explained than it was to carry the Coolant Flush than he had installed a fridge in his 'Mech's cockpit.