Author:
In another lifetime, August was a punk kid running a writing-themed e-zine in 2002 and participating in online survivor writing contests; these days, she’s a punk pseudo-adult with an office job and a studio of her own.

Meet Pitney Scolan. Pit, for short. He’s a decorated general and a venerated leader of the sprawling human race. He’s protected his species' colonies from vicious native animal populations and hostile alien life. He’s fiercely introverted, and he’s really looking forward to retiring on his personal planet in the very near future.

Except…now he has to be a dog.

A daugment, to be specific: a cybernetically enhanced canine, previously the doting pet of Pit’s biggest rival, General Tristan. It’s the only way to escape certain assassination.

So Pit grudgingly allies himself with a pair of well-meaning scoundrels and sets sail for seedier space in hopes of escaping Tristan’s clutches. What he finds instead is a galactic conspiracy to force him to make friends.

Daugment

And belonging was almost more heartbreaking than in-love love. At least in-love love knew it couldn't fill the void, the emptiness of the human experience. Family bullied its way right to the line of succeeding at that, and then fell short, mere inches away.


Ravenna slowly lifted her golden gaze and blinked. "So. You asked me to tell you about my transfer."


Pit blinked back. His whole being was pleasantly disoriented. "I did?"


"Just before we landed." Normally, Pit mused, Ravenna would have been irritated with his dismissive tendency to forget conversations he'd had with her. Now, she leaned closer. "I think I'm ready to tell you now. I don't think we're friends, Pit. I don't think I know how to have friends, really. I'm too much of an introvert. But I think you're just about the only one in my world who can understand what I go through, so I think you deserve to know what happened to me."


Chapter 25