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

01001000 01101111 01110010 01110101 01110011, 00100000 01001101 01111001 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01001100 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100.


~ binary inscription found on collar of Horus, companion of General Biaron Tristan


Horus's name was spoken with such a force of bewildered affection that Pit couldn't breathe.


Then he caught the scent of Tristan's breath, pungent and metallic. It was enough to remind both his natures of just why the general had always disgusted him. Even as his loyal daugment.


"Tristan," Pit woofed, instinctively dropping his voice as if to disguise it.


Tristan spat something small and hard onto the wall. He shifted his walking stick to his other hand. "Don't bother with the disguise, Scolan. I know it's you. I'd know you if you crawled before me as a changeling Schift-shaper. How trite of you to wear Horus's skin."


Chapter 55