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

As if captured overnight on a time-lapse film, the fungal growths wound upward on long stalks, away from the surfaces to which they clung. Heads or tops formed on each, drawing away from the stems, and surged out towards the two daugments. Pit flinched as some of the heads brushed against his paws, about the same size as his pads, feeling like fleshy knobs.


Three of them, hovering amongst the growths about five feet up the back wall, directly in front of them. Green and bright and intent, blinking to life. The growths flared upward all at once, then settled into place.


<Hello, pretty daugments,> came words that Pit simply understood. There was no hearing or feeling or seeing, just understanding.


"Hello, Gremma," Ravenna said, wagging her tail. She dipped her head towards the eyes. "I played with the arch again. I hope you don't mind."


Chapter 26