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

"No one should tell us how to cry for the people we love!" Reesha called.


A soft hush fell over the room. Canuum's empathy was tangible, a blanket draped by their collective hands around little Reesha's bowed shoulders.


Pit recalled Fionn's words: Isaias's wife, Reesha's mother, lost in a tragic experiment with black holes. No wonder the crowd mourned with the girl-yet their concern seemed just for her, not Isaias.


Isaias was like the lowest strains of a symphony, echoes of something epic from another aeon. His people had eyes and ears only for his grand ideas. His personal pain was unseen, unacknowledged. It slipped below their inadequate senses. They could not smell it, sense it the way Pit did.


Isaias recovered himself, raising his head and tightening his jaw. He gently heaved Reesha to the ground and released her hand, waving at her to take a seat.


Chapter 47