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 gazed down at Ravenna, who tipped her ears towards him and slackened her jaw in a half-laugh.


"Just remembering 'Our Ship Has Four Crew.' How gods-awful that story was."


"Ha! Ohh, yes, yes it was. Perhaps the worst I've read, and I've read, err...a few." Ravenna flattened her ears and looked guilty. Then she suddenly looked up at Pit. "So-are you happy with what you chose?" she asked in a breathless rush, shy again.


Pit found he was wringing his hands without realizing it. He forced them to rest at his sides. "Yeah," he said, as serious as he could be. "Yeah. I think so. I mean-there's so much to do. I get overwhelmed in this body a lot... Must be the leftover puberty."


Ravenna was staring at him with a mix of awe and skepticism. "Do you...do you ever miss being the beagle-basset?"


Pit weighed her question carefully. "No," he said, and then quickly, when her face fell, "I don't miss being Horus. But I do miss being Dog sometimes."


Chapter 62