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

Pit skidded to a stop, digging his nails into the carpeting, and spun around. But before he could exit the hallway, Ravenna raised her head and shook it at him, once. Her tail whapped frantically on the floor and she whined.


Pit grasped her meaning and backed into a dimly-lit doorway alcove.


A shadow loomed over Ravenna and she craned her head up to whimper at the approaching figure. It was a human, Pit saw with guilty relief, a feeling that washed away when he realized it was humans who had established Chir and who were most likely to be involved in its true purpose.


Which he had yet to determine. It could be advertising and marketing; it could be targeted assassination. It could be anything. It was definitely nefarious.


But this human didn't seem to be. It was a female, probably in her early twenties, who squatted down beside Ravenna with a look of concern.


Chapter 30