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

The bridge filled with Fionn's words: "We're landing on the plateau fuel station! HOLD ON!"


They did, with whatever they could. Pit clenched his teeth around the seatbelt and closed his eyes.


Well. I don't pray often, he thought, with that tiny voice inside his soul, which only spoke when he was within a stone's throw of death. Often.


He prayed now, but they were such secret prayers he didn't even know their contents. Just whispered them with that tiny voice and sent them off to whatever compassionate ear might listen.


"FEET DOWN!" Fionn roared. "LANDING GEAR ENGAG-"


The landing gear engaged with something, and then gave way; it was as if a rug had been tugged out from under the ship's feet. Certainty whipped to one side, listed, then began to fall. Pit knew because the pull of gravity lessened.


Oddly, he thought about Certainty's beautiful chrome hull and hoped it wasn't too horribly scratched.


Chapter 40