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

"OW!" the person said too, in a high, breathy voice, spilling over Pit's back.


Pit flopped over hard. His vision filled with tiny sparks and he blinked furiously, trying to recalibrate his HUD and his limbs. His shoulder and tail kicked in and flipped him upright, spinning him awkwardly to face his attacker.


His "attacker" proved to be a little girl, ten or eleven, both palms pressed to a spot above her left eye. Her right eye, golden-brown and filled with tears, bored into Pit with impressive outrage.


The outrage faded to remorse and then to pain, and then the girl squeezed her eye shut. "Owwww," she moaned, taking her high voice to a low register that resonated in Pit's skull and jerked him out of his attack stance.


"Oh, hey, kid, I'm sorry," he said, leaning forward so his center of gravity shifted over his front feet but his face wasn't alarmingly close to the child. "Guess I was in your way."


Chapter 43