3205.280 On Station and In Post.
IFU team deputised by Station Security.
Familiarisation with station, ship movements etc etc.
Investigation of pirate activity revealed no obvious patterns or lines of enquiry. However, in discussion
with Kormarov, it was decided that a thorough search of the accommodation within the station hub was justified. Reason : Station Security analysis is that the cheap, low G, accommodation at the hub is
probable location of criminals. They have not had the staff necessary to police the area significantly and it is currently regarded as a no go area.

OPERATION MOUSETRAP

Mission A: To search all accommodation at station hub. Hub to be locked-down for 4 hours during operation.

1. The Station Chief Executive's agreement to the operation was received. IFU Team organised into 3
Marine Squads, each commanded by an IFU director, with 4 Marines and 2 ComBots, and an HQ Squad [ er ... everyone else ].
HQ Squad commander is Silverado, Marine Squad commanders are Buck, Minogue & Mack-Duff.
Operational Deployment : IFU personnel in armour c/w grenades & demo-charges, plus 8 x CSRs & 3 x ComBots.
ROE : Tight Fire, ComBots OFF .
Station Maintenance Crew were attached. All of Komarov's Station Security team were deployed to
Station Main Control to control lock-down.

2. PHASE ONE - SEARCH OUTER HULL OF HUB
Carried out by 2 x Marine Squads with Maintenance Crew attached. 1 x Unauthorised container identified and searched; contained 1 x Combat Armour, 3 x SCAIII, various grenades - confiscated. 1 x Passive Sensor pod (identified as tampered with) searched; contained 6 x foil packages - removed for investigation. 1 x Emergency Airlock identified as inoperative; to be investigated during Phase Two.

3. PHASE TWO - SEARCH OF HUB ACCOMMODATION
3.1 LOCK-DOWN
We requested minimum notice to station populace / delay in establishing Lock-Down of Hub. Approx. 5 minutes delay before Hub doors locked. Komarov reported Station Security Chief attempted to delay / prevaricated. Over-ruled by Chief Executive. Note for future : Investigation to be made of Station Security Chief's reason for delaying Lock-Down.

3.2 IFU DEPLOY TO HUB
Minogue noticed trail of goods discarded from Hub to offices of AceGarp Shipping, adjacent to Hub. Upon request, Kormarov unofficially locked these offices.
AceGarp offices searched; illegal weapons, light armour, IDs & cash discovered. 4 suspect arrested,
and offices locked for further investigation.

3.3 SEARCH OF HUB
Emergency Airlock identified in Phase One; doors were disabled - contained 4 x 1m cubic pod, contents of each was: set of combat armour c/w SCA, grenades etc.
Adjacent accommodation block searched by 2 x Marine Squads. Fired on by occupants, incl. 2 in combat armour; no IFU hit, of perps. 2 dead, 2 serious wounds, 2 just scratched, 1 suit kill, 3 surrendered untouched plus 4 x hookers. 1 x ComBot and 1 x clanker destroyed. Ammo used: 2 x APGW, 3 x RadGren. No combat else where, but a further 11 illegal weapons confiscated. Investigation of the 10 shootists (excluding the 4 hookers) identified them as crew of C21990 SS Golden Dawn, and one of those held in the AceGarp offices as the first
officer.

As search of Hub is completed and Golden Dawn is identified as target it begins to burn from orbit ...
IFU staff immediately available to react are those outside Hub, viz: Smithson, Parker & Garside with 2 Marines and 4 x CSR.

Leon Mack-Duff
Director, IFU

IFU - Anti-Piracy Operations, Lakshmi Station, interim situation report, Masumi Minogue, Operative Commanding Squad 1 (Tony Silverado, Operative Commanding)

Arrived Lakshmi Station 3205:279, with 7 IFU operatives (Silverado, Minogue, Buck, MacDuff, Parker, Smithson, Garside - M. May still on detached duty on Deadwood), 13 hired Marines and 3 technical specialists, 20 Combat Robots (!!), 12 CSRs, 4 TRUCs and all manner of kit.
Made contact with local station personnel and security (under Komarov). Local facilities somewhat cramped and spartan, but liveable. Station is however in considerable disrepair and generally disorganised.
Many security cameras not working, especially in the Hub area, where lower-rent accomodation is available.

Issues:
Piracy is mostly conducted by outgoing ships from the station or by pirates infiltrating ships crews and seizing control by hijack.

It was decided to institute monitoring of all crew arrivals and departures and of ship departures so that we could be notified in advance (a) if several ships were due to leave at the same time and (b) if ships had had a significant turnover of crew. A 5-person squad of Marines would be on duty at all times to take ID details and 'assist' local customs officers in searching baggage (there had been considerable intimidation reported leading to very little cargo/luggage being checked on entry/exit).

On Day 281 it was also decided to run a surprise lockdown and sweep of the Hub area for contraband, suspicious individuals etc. This was conducted by three squads + and HQ squad;

Squad 1: Masumi Minogue
Marines Winfield, Odmuke, Chinzi, Tung

Squad 2: Frank Buck
Marines Anders, Feynman, Wazono, Driscoll-Manes

Squad 3: Leon MacDuff
Marines Billingsby, Stachilov, Tableski, Mu

HQ: Tony Silverado
Doc Garside
Specialists Browning, Tshibola
8 CSRs, 4 TRUCs

Another unit monitored external emergency airlock
exits from the Hub:
Bennie Parker, Smith Smithson,
Marine Hakkitova
Specialist Nakamura
4 Combat Robots

Squads 1 and 3 plus local maintainence personnel performed an initial sweep of the Hub exterior prior to lockdown. A case full of armour and weaponry was discovered clamped to the hull, several suspect packages were found in some external ducting, and one of the emergency airlocks was found to have been tampered with so that it was operated locally and opening/closing it did not register with station control.

Lockdown was agreed by station command, and effected at main control by Capt Komarov (in spite of some protests by the head of station security). On approaching the locked Hub area a trail of dropped items including guns, fake IDs was found. Squad 1 followed this into one of the four arms of the station, and coordinating with central camera records at Main Control allowed us to narrow down the fugitive to a small section of the Arm, which was locked down and searched. A locker in Ace Garp Haulage was found full of weapons and contraband, and the four personnel at the company were detained.

Search now began of the main Hub area. The airlock whose controls had been overridden was found to contain four containers, each with a suit of Marine armour and SCA. These were impounded. Squads 1 and 3 then moved to search residential areas. On entering the first area searched, next to the suspect airlock, Squad 3 came under fire from unarmoured men in
doorways. Squads 1 and 3 rapidly proceeded to clear this area, disabling a total of eight armed personnel (IIRC), two of them in combat armour, plus a clanker and a powered down combat robot. Five 'ladies of easy virtue' and two unarmed civilians were also arrested at the scene.
There were no IFU casualties.

Search of the rest of the Hub area yielded some minor contraband but no further resistance. However, as the sweep was finishing up, checks of IDs of the armed personnel found them to be registered to a vessel; the Golden Dawn, currently docked at the station. However, it transpired that the Captain and First Officer of the ship were not part of the haul, although checking the people from Ace Garp found the ID of the First Officer among them.
It was as we were organising to board and search the Golden Dawn that news came from Space Traffic Control that is was leaving the station without prior notification.

Day 281 - contd

Chase of the suspected pirate vessel Golden Dawn continued. Pursuit was led by Operatives Parker and Smithson and Marine Hakkitova + 4 combat robots + 4 CSRs in a station shuttle.
Operative Buck + Squad 2, in a second shuttle, were approx 15-20 minutes behind.
Operatives Minogue and Silverado, Squads 1 and HQ Squad followed in IP ship Percy, but were being left behind due to the superior acceleration of the other vessel.

The shuttle overhauled the Golden Dawn and Parker, Smithson, Hakkitova and combat robots entered via the
main cargo doors. Immediately they came under fire from several combat robots. Smithson was downed and all 4 of our combat robots disabled for one enemy combatant and two enemy combat robots downed. Parker decided to press on further was futile and hoped to wait for Buck and squad to arrive. However, after Hakkitova had got Smithson back to the shuttle, it was discovered he was critically injured and needed immediate medical attention within the hour. The nearest medical specialists were Garside and Browning on the Percy, but the only way that it could reach Smithson quickly enough was if the drives on the Golden Dawn were disabled. Parker evacuated Smithson
and Hakkitova on the shuttle and, at great personal risk, went to the control cables to the Dawn's main drive and placed demolition charges.

Some advice was provided by the engineer on the SS Percy, but as the ship had been in pirate use all normal operations and safety interlocks had been bypassed, and ultimately Parker ended up simply blowing all four cable bundles. The Golden Dawn began to accelerate further and Parker received garbled messages from the ship's bridge including expletives
and "you've killed us all". At this point Parker abandoned ship. Two other figures were also seen to
leap from the Golden Dawn before a terminal fusion core overload vapourised the vessel.

Smithson was recovered and treated. Parker was also located via her suit's emergency beacon and recovered.
Only one of the pirate escapees was found, however - the ship's captain, Ecchs, but not until after his suit's oxygen had run out and he had died.

Losses: 3 pirates killed (only 1 body recovered)
4 combat robots destroyed.
Smithson injured (7 days).
3 doses MAD, 3 demo charges, 10 APGW rounds expended
Golden Dawn destroyed.

Day 282

Smithson (from his wheelchair) and Parker, assisted by Nakamura, used date logs from the station and the personal computers recovered from the pirates captured on-station to try and build a picture of pirate activities on-station. Security Chief McGurk was suspected of involvement but there were no records of any communications involving him - in itself rather suspicious.

Finally, the computer recovered from Captain Ecchs and statements extracted by Komarov from the captured pirates proved enough to persuade Station Chief Melodee Liv to relieve him from duty and temporarily promote Komarov to acting chief of security.

McGurk was apprehended and his quarters searched. In addition to large quantities of credit chips which could not be accounted for, evidence was found linking him with several Free Traders, including two ships currently docked and one on inbound burn;
C3 1007 Sticky Bun
C2 994 Candelabra
and C4 1009 Monkey Nut (inbound)

Day 283

It was established that 8 crew from the Sticky Bun and 4 from the Candelabra were on-station. Komarov, assisted by Parker and Hakkitova and 2 combat robots agreed to apprehend them.

Meanwhile, a full Group assault would be conducted to impound and search the Sticky Bun, while the two station armed shuttles stood off from the Candelabra and prevented it from leaving station.

Col Silverado relinquished overall operational command to myself and took command of Squad 1 for the duration of the attack, feeling the itch to 'mix it' again.
Silverado's and MacDuff's squads were spearhead, on MAD, with Buck's as reserve.

As Squads 1 and 2 boarded the Sticky Bun, the ship burned from the station under 1G. Squad 3 and HQ squad + CSRs gave chase in the station shuttle and managed to move alongside. Buck and squad jumped between the moving shuttle and the ship, with only Marine Feynman missing the jump (and rapidly disappearing behind the accelerating ships).

MacDuff and squad made for power control while Silverado moved upstairs to main control. There was however heavy resistance from the opposition, including at least 4 combat robots and 7 pirates in combat armour, plus 4 CSRs. Silverado and his entire squad was downed, and MacDuff took casualties before occupying power control and cutting the drives, at which point the ship - fortunately - surrendered.

1 pirate was killed in the action and two wounded. 4 were captured unhurt. 4 CSRs and several combat robots were recovered (most in poor condition).
Our losses were mainly scratches and suit kills, but Marine Chinzi will take 15 days to recover, Marine Tung 19 days, Marine Tableski 14 days, and Tony Silverado 23 days.
The combat robots (ours and theirs together) were:
2 destroyed, 1 OK, 1 repairable in 1 day, one in 2 days, and 1 in 6 days.

The 'Candelabra' meanwhile attempted to burn from the station but was disabled by the station armed shuttles and surrendered.

A further 9 pirates were arrested either on-station or on the Candelabra.

So - aside from our injuries, a pretty quick week's work, capturing or destroying 3 pirate ships and crews and removing a corrupt local security official.

The C4000 Monkey Nut, meanwhile, arrives tomorrow...

Masumi Minogue
IFU

Frank Buck/Minogue take up the tale...

After much discussion we decided to be open and honest about it in case the Monkey Nut wasn't a pirate ship.
It was felt that we didn't have enough evidence to just storm aboard. I also didn't think we had the
manpower, especially with five of us out of action, to take a C4000 which might have up to 40 pirates on board. The idea was that if they resisted a search (which would include an initial sweep by combat robots just in case they had ambushes set up) we would disable the ship, and either blast them with the armed shuttles until they surrendered or wait them out.

Frank felt this was overly cautious on my part, and was all for a full assault, believing we could take
them. My argument was that even if we *could* (not convinced), it didn't mean we should. The cost in
terms of blown up robots, MAD doses consumed, IFU casualties etc didn't seem worth it. To me. Frank's in it for kicks, but for me this is a business. Still, there was some lively discussion on the subject.

We gave the MN a parking space and told them that we would be doing a routinesearch of the vessel because we had recently had pirate trouble. The search would look for confirmation that their transponder wasn't tampered with (or being capable of being changed); that their crew/passenger identities would be verified and checked against the known/wanted lists; a search would be made for contraband (including any weaponry that would require licensing for legitimate military use); we also wanted to check that they had accurately reported to us who and what was on board.
They reported a crew of 12. Eight came over to the station and were processes - they argued that they needed to keep one 'watch' on board to keep the ship running.
There was a plan for conducting the search, but we didn't get into it implementing most of it.
No, because I insisted that before we searched the interior, we should plant explosives enabling us to disable their drive, and check that they weren't all hiding out in the cargo pods (which is what I would have done).

Parker & Duff with two marines and a ship systems tech landed on the vessel to have a look at the cargo grid and secure demo charges to the main power control cables on the ship. Meanwhile I was in charge of a boarding party armed for bear with 12 combat robots and nine marines (including me). The remainder of the force was held as a reserve to support any active operations (16 CSR, 4 truc and some odds and sods). There were also two armed shuttles on standby to prevent the ship burning for the M25.
The first step was to get the crew to send off the non-essential staff (8 out of 12 declared) by shuttle to the station.

Parker & Duff then landed and made their way to the central core. However they were distracted en route by a very old looking container that was marked as containing hazardous material. They decided that this was suspicious and that it ought to be opened. On questioning the ship control they were informed that it was very dangerous and hazardous and that it wasn'treally safe to open. Masumi said that she was adequately insured and would be happy just to take a quick look. Ship control informed us that they had no door opening code for it. Duff countered with offering a demo charge to fix that.
The ship started burning at this point and the cargo pod doors opened to reveal a multi-cannon, which fired almost immediately. The Parker/Duff squad immedaitely made for the central core while the Monkey Nut began manoeuvring to be able to shoot the armed shuttles. In the context of the space battle Bennie Parker managed to blow a control cable to the main thrusters to prevent the Monkey Nut escaping. Then Duff started the process of laying a pattern of demo charges on the back of the cargo pod containing the multi-cannon to blow into it to put it out of action.
Frank was all for storming the ship at this point, but I wasn't going near a ship armed with a multicannon in two unarmed shuttles. We'll skip over Frank's 'standing orders' to the shuttle pilots...

While this was in progress the access hatch to the crew compartment opened and a shower of grenades was delivered. This rapidly became an exchange, with no casualties on the IFU end. The ship was still rotating and firing on manouevre thrusters until one of the armed shuttles managed to
disable the multi-cannon.

At which point I was happy to order the boarding party to land and begin securing the ship.
At this point the boarding party landed and used APGW to blow the main airlock doors. Part of the landing party (4 marines and 4 CR) was despatched around the hull to provide direct aid to Parker & Duff while the remainder put pressure on the crew through the main entrance.
Parker & Duff's opononents surrendered at this stage, although the ship's Captain continued to resist until my squad had secured the top deck and was about to enter the command deck about the same time as the rest of IFU were coming up from the cargo access hatch. No casualties on IFU.
Reporting to the captain that he had lost six of his crew injured or captured seemed to do the trick. He surrendered at that point.

One of the armed shuttles will need a few multicannon holes plugged in it, but basically it was a bloodless takeover, although admittedly Duff and Parker were pretty lucky with the grenade exchange. In retrospect I should have probably sent a larger squad to secure the cargo area. Still, all's well that ends well.

They had 30 in total; ten astronauts and techs, five officers and 15 combat crew. Needless to say they had sent astronauts and techs over to the station, so the ship still had 20 combat crew on board. No robots or CSRs, but still enough to make a decent fight of it.
Personally I think it could have got messy and I'm happy we did it the way we did, unglamorous though it may be.

Now, Frank, you and me need to have a little chat...

Masumi Minogue,
IFU

Following the recent spectacular victories against
pirates, the IFU team have had a quiet 22 days or so.

During this time, team members have been aiding the civil power (Currently 'Captain' Komarov, acting Security Chief), by accompanying his guards on their station patrols and searches of merchants. Illegal activity of all sorts have decreased substantially, as the IFU now has a reputation for being a bunch of scarily tough hombres.

In fact there is every indication that trade has picked up, as word of the new tough line on piracy has
got out.

Komarov has also been improving the security systems and weeding out dodgy space traffic control people.
During his investigations he has found something a bit curious in the STC records - especially so because it had been hidden - clearly by a bribed space traffic controller.
About 3AU away orbiting Lakshmi IV, a small rocky planet is a moon that appears to have been
clandestinely visited a number of times by incoming and outgoing interstellar merchants. This is highly suspicious, especially as it was visited only recently

by one of the ships the team arrested. There is no other registered activity on this moon, and there is therefore only one logical conclusion.

......