"Shades of Gray" is a short story by Charlene Newcomb and is the latest installment in her long-running Alex Winger series. It bridges the events of Betrayal by Knight and Vision of the Future. The story originally appeared on Starwars.com Hyperspace. On October 1, 2012, it was republished on Suvudu, a subsidiary website of Random House publishing.
The story revolves around just how Alex received her cybernetic fingers first mentioned in Timothy Zahn's Vision of the Future.
The story has been in development since 2005. As of July, 2008 LFL publishing had accepted Charlene's proposal for a new short story that would go into editing by August/September 2008.
In August of 2009, Charlene hinted that the preceding story, Betrayal by Knight, would be appearing on Hyperspace with "Shades of Gray" appearing sometime in the fall. After some delay Passages was instead posted. The story was eventually released on Hyperspace on December 22, 2009. On October 1, 2012, the story was republished on Suvudu, a subsidiary website of Random House publishing.