Lakshmi Station Q8

This is a very small orbital. The colony been in existence for several decades, but has never been wealthy enough for a proper full-sized orbital station.

The station is mainly a handy way-point for orbital transfers, and houses the space traffic control personnel and some security and admin people.
It has a total crew of about 1,200.

The station manages around 2 interstellar arrivals/departures a day, around 1 interplanetary and around a dozen surface to orbital flights.

There is some orbital mining of nearby asteroids (around 0.3 of an AU away).

Station Management

The station is run by a civilian Station Council. The representatives break down as follows:

Lakshmi Station Chief Executive Melodee Liv
Freedom Republic Rep Lanie Ferandez
Democratic Colony Rep Laurinda Bracher
Christian Enclave Rep Un Bleck
Colony One Rep Raphael Quilici
Lakshmi Station Consortium reps Tarra Jurgenson
Cliff Spraglin

At Full Council Meetings there are also usually the following in attendance in a non-voting capacity:
· Chief of station security - Charles McGurk.
· Chief of Operations - Loria Scheuer
· Chief of Space Traffic Control - Toi Kobara
· Senior Maintenance officer - Emely Figueron

Station Security

The Station has a full time professional security team, comprising around 40 combat crew led by an ex-Marine, called Captain Komarov.
Komarov has only been in the job for about an octant, his predecessor having been killed fighting pirates.

The station itself has a number of multi-cannon defence turrets and three armed shuttles have recently been added to the security inventory.

Corporations & Consortia

The station was constructed in 3175 funded by a consortium of major corporations investing in the economy of the colony in Quadrant 8.

The Lakshmi Station Consortium is very influential, even though it has probably reaped its return on the investment by now.

The LSC consists of the following partners, in order of size of stake holding:

40% Weygand Colonial Developments
25% Lexcorp
12% Association of Free Traders
10% Flying Horse Shipping
7% Rafael
6% Superdynamics

Lakshmi Colony

The colony has been struggling for decades to get itself going.

Over the last few years it has been suffering from increased pirate activity and this has led to further decline. At the current rate the colony might have to be abandoned if the economy does not pick up.

The recent problems have been exacerbated by the fighting in Spring City earlier this year (which involved the IFU if you recall).

The main colonial groupings, in order of size are:

The Pirate Problem

Lakshmi has had around 8 pirate attacks on its shipping in the past year. The attacks have been either outgoing intercepts by pirate posing as merchant ships, or hijacks.

As the station lacks pacifiers or a star guard force, preventing these attacks is nearly impossible.

Station security has attempted to detect pirates on arrival, but again, due to lack of resources there is little the colony can do to enforce detailed cargo searches of every incoming ship.

This is further complicated by some merchants not using the station at all - some of the bigger corporations choose to deliver direct to the customer without going through the station or paying much attention to space traffic control (and not paying station fees or import / export taxes).

The IFU Role
The Lakshmi Station Consortium wish to discourage pirate activity in Lakshmi and has earmarked substantial funds to do so.

The LSC has a number of merchant lines on-side, and the support of the Management Council. The Station council feels that pirates regard Lakshmi as a easy touch for raids. Whilst they realise that they cannot stop pirates altogether - it is hoped that a highly aggressive counter-pirate campaign will make them think twice

Resources Available to IFU on station

There are some stocks of arms and equipment available - but given the economic state of the colony, marine equipment is scarce.

The following is available in store:

20 x spacesuits
9 x SCA I
18 x poor quality marine armour, no weapons
15 x good marine armour with SCAII and demo/gren load
4 x good marine armour with SCAIII and demo/gren load
8 x Grenade/Demo charge reloads
16 x APGW reloads
10 x Combat robots
4 x CS Robots (loaded)
1 x TRUC
1 x dismounted multi cannon (no ammo)
5 units of robot spares