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 walls gave way as he wrenched the manacles free. Then he screamed. It lanced across Pit's ears like a primal blade. The sound wasn't rage. It wasn't pain. It wasn't triumph. It was all of those things together, a golem of terrifying, overpowering emotion.


Isaias caught Argo with his elbow and snapped the child's neck. Then he fell onto the bayonet waiting on the end of Tristan's upturned walking stick.


His death was anything but noble. There was nothing of the handsome, charismatic Isaias in the flailing, blood-bubbling body.


But Isaias's scream of war and triumph still sang in Pit's veins. Argo's fell limp as a toy, the horrific weapon clattering down beside it. Twitch howled, a terrible, hollow sound.


Pit lunged. In mid-air he snapped his tail-blades open, ignoring the pain that seared through his old injury. He pushed Argo's corpse to the floor with all four paws and used the momentum to fly at Tristan's face.


Chapter 56