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stable isotopes, promethium was a critical industrial
chemical element.  The Alpha Field, located between Skathi-1 and Skathi-2,
appeared to be a veritable garden for this rare material.  It was intensely
dense, making standard ore scanning procedures useless and starship sensor
capability heavily reduced due to interference.  The second major asteroid
field, the Beta Field, was positioned 15 lm (light-minutes) past Skathi-3. 
It too contained enough trace deposits of promethium to create substantial sensor
disturbances but nothing comparable to those experienced in and around the
Alpha Field.
    Four
years ago, after a Brevic scouting squadron surveyed the system, the Republic’s
major mining companies fought tooth and nail for the system’s initial mineral
rights.  After two years of litigation, Renard Mining Enterprises had prevailed
and rushed to begin its mining protocols.  Three Renard ore surveyor ships
began their sweeps but the Alpha Field proved to have too much sensor
disturbance for anything but time-consuming, close range analysis.  Two of the
three ships moved further out-system to begin categorizing the Beta Field while
the third conducted a limited site survey of the Alpha Field.
    Any
operation in space is dangerous.  Space is not an environment friendly to
Terran life and despite spending centuries in it, man has discovered that space
has abundant ways to demonstrate just how unfriendly it is.  After one month of
surveying the Alpha Field, contact with the first Renard surveyor ship was
lost.  The remaining two ships organized a crude search but found no trace of
the lost surveyor.
    Having
gotten off to a bad start, the second Renard ore survey mission was created to
right the wrongs of the first.  Renard had accepted that in its rush to begin
exploiting the rich mineral deposits, it had overlooked the inherent dangers of
surveying in a high radiation, low sensor visibility environment.  The vast
sums of monies paid to the families of the doomed first ship’s crew had helped
reinforce the point to the company.  This time, Renard sent three standard
surveyor ships for the Beta Field and the flagship of their priceless Domeyko
class ships to chart the Alpha Field.
    In
the first week, Domeyko had surveyed approximately three percent of the
asteroid field and already had categorized enough promethium extraction sites to
place the asteroid belt on track to be the largest single known source of promethium
once fully surveyed.  Roughly three weeks into the job, Domeyko transmitted that it had found what it believed was the hull of Renard’s lost
surveyor ship.  This discovery was Domeyko’s last transmission and the
beginning of the rumors that Skathi was a cursed system.
    Renard,
having sunk billions of Brevic credits into the system, could hardly walk away
from the project.  Besides, the company argued to the Republic’s Mining Safety
Panel, once online the system had the potential to place the Republic into the
enviable position of being the universe’s largest exporter of promethium. 
Having none of that, the panel suspended all mining activity within the system.
    It
took another year for Renard’s lawyers to make the right arguments and push the
right buttons to have Skathi reopened for economic development.  Even before
the system officially reopened, Renard sent in surveyor ships in preparation for
the authority to reestablish mining operations.  Understanding that they had no
margin for error, Renard towed in an orbital prospector outpost.  The orbital was
Skathi-3’s first satellite and was positioned in technically a graveyard orbit,
an orbit a few hundred kilometers above standard geosynchronous that satellites
were typically moved into at the end of their lifespan. 
    In
times past, such a mining station would have been placed much closer to the
mining area.  However, costly experience had taught space-faring miners that
placing their “home base” close to an easily