Chapter 1

Engineering a world to be what I wanted-I thought that would make me feel the way I wanted, too, you know? As a nine-year-old who'd just purchased my own planet, I thought: Oh, look at me, I'm a god-only I'm doing it right.

Like I had any right to say what I was doing was right.

But that's a long story.

~ General Pitney Scolan, live interview, WinStar Solar System News, December 14th, 2609, 71:00 local time.

Forty-two years earlier:

Pitney buttoned his shirt all the way to the top, because it was that sort of morning. He could already hear the pre-dawn hee-haws of the snowbirds, which local scientists insisted were beautiful, complex love-songs. The force of his disagreement with that conclusion made him cinch his tie too tightly against his Adam's apple.

Pitney choked and swore, but finally clawed the tie loose, taking with it the top button. Its lazy arc took it under the bed, out of reach.

Snowbirds never had to get gussied up and attend social events.

Granted, they didn't earn medals for saving their species, either. Pitney Scolan was no snowbird.

No more distractions.

Focus.

One more ceremony. One more day. Then he could take his well-earned retirement bonus from the Human Authority Government (a good three years' spending money, at least), and finally, finally, set foot on his personal planet, Prowess.

First he'd call the one thousand, four hundred and ninety-one sentient laborers putting the last touches on the self-sustaining terraforming systems and let them know: all contracts were terminated. Prowess would take care of herself, and he could live there alone, forever free of judgment and stupidity.

First, though... First he had to go and collect his medal.

Damn the Human Authority Government. Damn them and their need for ceremony, for pomp and ritual. It made today stretch longer than the last six decades combined.

Pitney marveled at that. Sixty years'-worth of plans, executions-not enough of those, perhaps-more plans, revisions, revisions, more revisions... and waiting. Somehow, he'd survived sixty years of sleepless nights, hoping against hope and against the asteroids, aliens, programming errors, and dirty freeloaders who could harm his precious Prowess.

All while maintaining a spotless, medal-strewn record as one of the HAG's top military minds, whose career culminated in the heroic defense of a struggling colony against a pack of ruthless, cold-blooded, and heretofore unheard-of aliens dubbed "the Trembling."

No big deal.

He laughed into the silence of his room at that, too maniacally for his own taste. Scolan... Get ahold of yourself.

One more twitch of the tie. Pinching the top corners of his shirt together, he hesitated. He couldn't count on his modest chest hair to turn heads anymore, not when it was that shade of springy grey. But what the hell.

He chose a pair of his favorite indoor slippers. Small rebellions, he thought. Slippers wouldn't show up in any of the press's reprographs of the ceremony, but they'd make anyone in the room who gave a shit about decorum a wee bit uncomfortable. Perfect.

Last, he pulled on his well-worn grey field cap.

Pitney Scolan, HAG general, looked back at him in the mirror.

It activated the soldier part of his brain, and he drew in through his senses, locking into his physical body like he would before combat. He sorted through the sensory details of this room, which was just another temporary home on a military base, despite its opulence. There it was: the strange undertone of someone else's selection in cleaning products. His skin prickled with Makops's ever-winter cold.

Coming out of the meditation with a shiver, he reached for the nightstand, where hot tea awaited him.

Or rather, where it should have been awaiting him. No hot mug, no cold mug, no mug at all met his hand.

Pitney frowned. It seemed none of the usual staff had been through this morning. On a normal day, he would have noted a crucial detail out of place. A whistling wind blew through Pitney's mind, bringing with it a chill he interpreted as anticipation.

Then the double closet doors flew open and out spilled the sound of canine nails on ancient, extravagant wooden floors.

Something quite large darted out of his closet towards him, and through force of instinct, Pitney kicked out with his slippers. He landed a blow with one foot, and with a sharp whoomph the air left his unwanted visitor's lungs, but he came down hard on his other ankle, grimacing as it bent the wrong way.

Pitney pressed his hand to his heart. "Gods," he panted. Almost seven decades under his belt. He wasn't a young man anymore. That kind of scare could decommission him faster than he wanted.

He turned the full force of his fear-wrought anger on his unwanted visitor. "HORUS!"

The daugment's head jerked up, though his bionic eye glittered with contempt. He was a lumpy beagle-basset hound mix the size of a six-year-old child, and a sloppy attempt at enhanced intelligence had left him with the smarts to match.

"I hope you aren't injured," Pitney said, feeling a small but genuine twinge of remorse. "All reflex, you understand."

The four metal segments on the end of Horus's tail scritched the floor as he sized Pitney up with his real eye. Twitching towards the spot on his side where Pitney's slipper had connected, he sucked in his breath. "Damn, Pit, wouldn't've thought you the kind of undog what sinks his own claws in the kill." The words buzzed out of vocalization modules installed in the daugment's cheeks, so his speech was audible even when he kept his muzzle closed. "Tristan's going to howl when he hears you kicked me. He's going to howl."

Bonus-this bionically-enhanced little shitstain of a lap pet belonged to Pit's personal and professional rival: General Biaron Tristan, also a HAG man. A beautiful asshole who'd had it in for Pitney since the day they'd first crossed paths.

All of Pitney's loathing for Tristan manifested in the ass-faced daugment leering at him in his own room. "Get out," Pitney growled, "or I'll do more than kick you."

"Threats!" Horus's brows shot up. "Comical. Don't wear so well on undogs what look at least fourteen in dog years."

"OUT," Pitney roared in his loudest field commander voice. Smirking, Horus heaved himself to his feet, his long ears dragging on the ground. Without permission, Pitney's brain ran the calculation on Horus's sleight: "I do not look NINETY-EIGHT!"

The daugment slunk to the door, which giggled as it slid open, the sound like a claw down Pitney's spine. He loathed that technology with near the intensity he did the snowbirds or Horus, having encountered the inventor twice. The warning system, which was supposed to make building-goers feel like the doors were their friends, served as a grating reminder of the way the creepy kid had tittered every time he said "calculations."

Pitney found that he was growling.

On the other side of the door, in solemn contrast to the giggling, stood Pitney's lieutenant Jason McAver.