The Divum-Moenia is prospecting in the asteroid fields of Lalande 21185. The ship's database listed the following information about the system: Lalande 21185, Distance from Sol: 8.31127 light-years, class M2n V From NASA's database, dating back to the early 21st century: The z-component of Lalande 21185's velocity suggests that it's from the galactic halo population; however, J.R. Mould's spectral analysis (printed in vol. 226, page 923 of the Astrophysical Journal (1978)) says that the ratio of iron to hydrogen in the star is a whopping 60% of our sun's iron-to-hydrogen ratio, which is awfully iron-rich for a halo population star.  The presence of emission lines in the star's spectrum would support the idea that this is a decently heavy-element-rich star as well.      Wobbles in Lalande 21185's position were once thought to indicate an unseen object orbiting it, but subsequent analysis showed that no such wobbles were occurring. From the crew member Adir Lesovitch's personal diary: "Lee did an amazing job, as he always does, at bringing us into rendezvous with the largest of the rocks we'd spotted. Dimitian's scans confirmed that there was a surprising amount of gold and possibly some silver in veins running through all three of these rocks. The rest of the rocks were rich in nickel-iron mixes that would be plenty valuable in their own right, but the gold's value as an industrial metal was by far the greatest find, and we planned to dig the major portion out ourselves, tag the asteroid and then relay it to a combine who'd chew it up in one of their larger processing ships. We'd get a portion of the gains from that, but if we brought the gold back ourselves we'd do much better. That made it worth the risk of mooring to a slowly tumbling rock, and locking ourselves down. Captain Alexander had spent a great deal to buy this prototype of a new ship that wouldn't enter full production for a few years. I'm still not sure how he managed it, but he certainly has many contacts in the industry. The ship's worth was already made clear as we maneuvered in and moored ourselves. This find would get us back out of debt, and maybe we'd really be home-free, if only we don't get bogged down by Alex's paranoid fears." -------------- …And so the story continues, The ship is a model you've seen plenty of times from me. It's my own design, the ship and the asteroids were done in Bryce, the starscape and the postwork are all in Photoshop CS3.