HTL continues with the second part of Shades of Grey, written by Nick "Chaeronea" Deane. One of the main themes of this story has been of people letting go of past disputes and ill feelings to come together in their common humanity, in the face of a monstrous enemy they hadn't known existed. While it was never planned this way, it's a theme that is tragically appropriate this week. To all the Wingnuts whose lives were touched what happened, please know that my thoughts and those of the HTL writers are with you. God bless.

It's been quite a few months since HTL celebrated its second anniversary,and the publication of its 100th chapter. You can find all of those chapters at:

http://blance.com/wcl/wclegacy/HTL/htl-main.html

Since then, we've published close to two dozen chapters via the Aces Club mailing list, but our online archives haven't been updated, for a variety of reasons. That's been frustrating for both readers who aren't on the list, and for the writers, who naturally want to reach as big an audience as possible. However, the CIC has now kindly agreed to publish our chapters, and we'll be bring you a new chapter each week. As chapters on the mailing list are sent out fortnightly, the chapters posted on the CIC will catch up to where we are with the mailing list, so that those who've chosen not to be on the list will no longer have to settle for getting chapters later than club members.

For those who have read the first 100 chapters when they posted on the archives, but who may now be a little hazy on the details, I would suggest skim reading the last two chapters of the Nephele Arc and the first five chapters of the Loki Arc (which is to say, chapters 94 through to 100.) That'll refresh your memory on where we are with the story.

For those new to HTL, welcome aboard. Reading chapters 94 to 100 (along with the background information on the archive site) will give you enough information to get into the story. Obviously, it would be ideal if you could read all the past chapters, but that's something you can do whenever you want to. Also, for those unfamiliar with the ships and fighters used by the Border Worlders in 2681, you can find all the information at:

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~theraj/battlegroupval/

Anyway, that's enough for me. I hope you enjoy this story, and the many more coming your way in the future. This chapter is by one of my best writers, Nick "Chaeronea" Deane. Please send any and all comments to him at chaeronea@bigpond.com.

Best, Raptor