Lightspeed Trilogy

When a brilliant scientist gets a letter from herself about faster-than-light travel, she doesn't know what to believe. The equations work, but her paper is discredited - and soon the criticism is more than scientific. Exiled by the establishment, she gets an offer to build her starship from an unlikely source. But in the heights of Venus and on a planet of another star, a secret is already being uncovered that will shake humanity to its foundations.

Mathematician Lakshmi Nayak receives a letter from her future self about faster-than-light travel. The equations work, and the letter itself seems to prove the possibility will someday be realized. But her paper on the topic is fiercely criticized, and she's warned away by a sinister Alliance agent. After defecting to the Union, she gets an unexpected offer: "I can build your ship." Shipbuilder John Grant learns of a secret project, which unknown to the world has been traveling to the stars for decades: Black Horizon.

With the invention of faster-than-light travel there is nowhere that humanity cannot go. New worlds are discovered, but with them come new dangers. At the heart of the discovery is the Fermi, mysterious beings that have survived on alien worlds for longer than humanity has existed. But now the Fermi are awakening, and they do not seem pleased to find humans in their midst. But for Lakshmi Nayak and the crew of the Fighting Chance, danger is a lot closer to home. Their search for answers will take them to places, and worlds, they never expected.

The invention of faster-than-light technology has brought great opportunity, but also great danger. The Black Horizon conspiracy is broken up, but it still has deadly assets beyond the reach of Earth. As the great powers jostle for advantage, the alien minds known as the Fermi have their own ways of dealing with humans meddling in plans vaster and more ancient than anyone can suspect.

The Fermi have departed from the rocky worlds, but they still haunt the gas giants. Hurled into the past by a time-slip, John Grant and his onboard AI navigate the long way back. They return to the present in a distant system, where they find Terre Nouveau, a human settlement already two hundred years old. Grant's ship takes this astounding news to the far-roving Station, where Nayak has found new problems and a new lover.

Humanity has taken to the stars, using faster-than-light travel to reach distant planets and new worlds. But in the far reaches of the galaxy, John Grant will discover a planet of humans who believe he has travelled not only through space to find them, but time. On Apis, the mysterious Fermi appear to have vanished, taking with them knowledge of the universe that humanity desires. But Marcus Owen, the robot AI now plagued with sentience, knows that the Fermi would not easily abandon the native life of Apis.