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 froze at the threshold of the second dining hall. It was a drastic change from the warm, companionable meal. There were no tables, just a fire in the center of a ring of seated people. No one was eating. No one was speaking louder than a whisper. Everyone turned as Fionn and his company entered, and eyes narrowed at the daugments, but no one said a word. The world seemed to freeze.


Pit couldn't help imagining what he must look like, padding along at Fionn's heels like a housepet. Now, Sassy the setter, she knew her place among the Canuum. She ran at someone's side and they wanted her there, and she wanted to be there. Her life had value and purpose.


Pit knew he stank of purposelessness. The Canuum didn't want him here. He didn't want to be here. He wasn't a dog, and he wasn't a man, and he wasn't even really a daugment. He was a stranger caught up in someone else's plot. He was a stranger living in someone else's skin. He was-


Chapter 46