Unlikely Hero: Spacehiker Adventure, #1

By Sian B. Claven

Rereleased with Double the adventure!Unlike any space adventure you've ever been on before.Jasy is a Spacehiker, an illegal traveller traipsing across the civilised universe, and she wants nothing more than to make her way here and there on her own. Befriended by a spaceport bar owner, she is enticed with a payout she can't ignore to escort two strangers to Dark Space. Little does she know that his is the start of an adventure she is not sure she is ready to have. With Markus and Zara in tow, Jasy must spacehike through galaxies and across planets, all the while evading the nefarious guards and pirates that are out for their blood. Will Jasy's quick wits and vast space knowledge be enough to get them to safety?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sian B. Claven
• Release date: Mar 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9798201931261

Sian B. Claven

Known as the International Bestselling, Award-winning Author of horrific old-school terror titles such as Buried and the Asylum Series, Sian B. Claven brings back a nostalgic telling of creepy tales. Aiming high, this misleadingly bubbly author terrifies her fans with tales of ghosts, murderers, and demonic possessions as though handing out candy to children, all while expanding her releases from her first young adult horror in 2017 to her more recent explicit demonic occult horror in 2021. With an on the edge of your seat series, Claven enthralled her readers with her Butcher series, surprising them with a fourth and now final book in the series in 2021 as part of the Notorious Mind’s Boxset, along with Shh, which were both part of the Soul’s Day Boxset which made her an International Bestselling Author. Claven also dabbles in the Science-Fiction Space Adventure genre, having republished her Spacehiker Adventure Series – Unlikely Hero with an updated cover and storyline after receiving criticism about the book’s length. Claven looks forward to expanding this universe. Further challenging herself, Claven also tackled writing a paranormal romance series, the first of which released as part of the Possessed by Passion boxset in March 2021. The series will continue, and Claven looks forward to exploring this new world. Born in Southern Africa, Claven resides in Johannesburg, where she grew up with a vivid imagination and has been writing for as long as she can remember. When she was not immersing herself in books, she created her own worlds, both by herself and with her friends. After her sister immigrated in 2017, Claven wrote and published her first book and has been on an amazing journey ever since. Claven is an avid Harry Potter and Star Wars fan, Funko Pop Collector, 3d Puzzle builder, Diamon Art painter, and studying addict. She also has a penchant for Lego. She resides with her two best friends, their six dogs, and two cats.

Book preview

Unlikely Hero

UNLIKELY HERO

SIAN B. CLAVEN

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

A History

Jasy’s Arrival

Sneaking Away

Trust

Thalia

JeTaimeLoreal

Trustworthy

The Hybrid Movement

Daring Escapes

COPYRIGHT 2019 Sian B. Claven

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All characters; events and establishments in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

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The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author.

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Cover Design by Francessca Wingfields

Edited by Samantha Talarico

Proofed by Toni Cox

This one is dedicated to Toni.

Without you, this story would be incomplete.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to everyone who has helped shape me into the author I am, but a very big thank you needs to go out to the following friends and family.

To Toni, my best friend. Thank you for believing in me. This one is for you.

To Darren, thank you for always being willing to listen to me rant and rave about books.

To Jackie, my darling and my everything. Thank you for being my number one supporter and fan, and the best big sister a little sister can ask for.

To Sam, Thanks for being so excited for this one that you made me excited to rewrite it.

To you my Beta team - thank you Lorrie & Ona for standing by me and being the first to enter my new world.

To Kim & Andi, my ARC team thank you for standing by while I worked on this to make it perfect.

To my fantasy fans - I hope you enjoy this story.

Many years ago, on a planet called Earth, a species called humans, perfected their advancement in technology and set about to expand their reach from their planet to that of other worlds.

They anticipated that although other planets within their solar system were not populated, there was a possibility that planets in other solar systems close by were. Therefore, they armed themselves and prepared for a war they were sure would start, because they would start it, end it, and conquer everything in their path.

The humans needed resources, they needed power, but most of all they needed to be the kid with the bigger stick so that no-one would come and do to them what they were planning to do. That was their greatest motivation - fear. Fear that another planet would see what they had and take it from them, so they planned to strike first.

The first few planets where they encountered life were taken by surprise and were not prepared for what the humans had planned. As a result, they quickly found themselves falling to the humans’ rule and became their slaves.

This bolstered the humans’ arrogance, and they pressed on, adding the civilisations they conquered to their armies; using their resources, people, and weapons to their advantage as they wrecked through planet after planet.

The Inter-Galactic Commission was formed, and representatives from across the Civilised Universe were sent to Thalia, a planet far from where the humans were currently attacking, to discuss what could be done about them.

And so the thirty-year war started. It was thirty years, at least in human years, but for others, it was longer, and for others still, it ended in the blink of an eye.

The humans were defeated, and although they feared retribution for their actions, they were merely tasked to pay off an enormous debt to those planets that they had attacked and forced into slavery.

Bitter, as humans are known to be, they spent years paying off their debt to the Civilised Universe, all the time looking for another way in which to rule them.

It was when the Official Union Transport – OUT - was formed that the humans really took power in a way others didn’t even realise.

They did it slowly at first by entering into the politics of the Civilised Universe to help shape and mould rules in the better interest of the various species that resided within their jurisdiction and then through helping pass laws about transport that would hand them the Civilised Universe on a golden platter without anyone even realising it until it was too late.

Before anyone knew it, the humans had created the laws of the transport system within the universe so that they controlled the bulk of the profits.

They punted out so many transport ships that no other nation could match or compare, and with the laws being so solidly passed, everyone was forced to use the humans’ transport system.

It made them the wealthiest species and the most powerful. So much so that Earth was renamed Antonia and became the seat of power, the centre of the universe, for the Inter-Galactic Commission of the Civilised Universe.

The people that truly suffered were those that could not afford the travel prices, which were always steep, and those that did not qualify to travel.

You had to have reasons, qualifications, credits, money, and a host of other things to leave your planet, so the poor remained behind on the poor planets, and they suffered while the rich got richer exploiting them.

A new generation of rule-breakers was born from this.

The Space Hikers - a person, or group of people, that illegally boarded transport or bartered for transport on cargo ships and then travelled around the universe following their own desires and rules.

If found, they were sent to Antonia for immediate execution. It was the riskiest law to break, and yet so many desperate people did it.

One particular person, a twenty-two-year-old hybrid human, called Jasy Black, was one of the best Space Hikers around.

This is her story.

Jasy sat in the cargo bay of the ship, her sleeping bag on her lap as she repaired a tear in it. It wasn’t too cold at the moment because one of the other Hikers had asked the captain to turn the heating on in the cargo section, but she wanted it fixed before they docked at their next destination.

She worked quietly; she hardly ever spoke to anyone unless it was a job she was working; she preferred to keep to herself. The less people knew, the better for her.

An older guy sat across from her. He was Velician from what she could tell. He was a large, beetle Velician with grey pincers and raggedy clothes. He was using his claws to roll a cigarette; something Velicians had picked up when they had been conquered by humans a thousand years ago.

Jasy could see his buggy eyes darting to her now and then, even though she wasn’t looking directly at him, and his one wing twitched nervously. It made her suspicious.

You’re too young to be hiking around the galaxy, he finally clicked at her.

His black outer body turned fully to her as he patted himself down for a light, holding the cigarette between his pincers.

None of your business, Jasy said quietly, tying a knot in the thread and biting it off.

She laid out the sleeping bag and rolled it up tightly so she could put it in her backpack with the few other possessions she had.

Just an observation, the Velician clicked.

Keep it to yourself, Jasy looked at him now, her eyes narrowing, I’m not your property or your kin, so no need to discuss nothing with me.

You must be a runaway, he continued regardless, inhaling deeply from the poorly made cigarette; the smoke filled the space around him, making him appear hazy.

Jasy didn’t respond; she was done talking. Once the sleeping bag was packed into her backpack, she stood to stretch, flashing the dagger at her side in his direction.

He took the cue and shut up, not mentioning another word to Jasy. She knew how to take care of herself, and people often mistook the fact she was female as a sign of weakness. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Jasy glanced around the cargo area at the other Hikers that had secured passage on this ship. There were various species on board, and a Thalian couple, snakelike humanoids, caught her attention because the female was pregnant and retching into a bucket while her mate rubbed her back delicately.

Jasy felt for her; there was nothing worse than travelling when you weren’t feeling yourself. She knew how that was. She had to leave at a moment’s notice on more than one occasion while being ill because someone had notified the law officials that she was a Hiker.

Bastard money seekers, they’d rat out their own mother for a few coin. Still, she had made it thus far and was still going strong. The law officials would be hard-pressed to find her.

This is your captain speaking, a friendly voice came over the intercom, and everyone turned to listen, We’re about to dock at Spaceport Twelve orbiting Antonia. We thank you for your patronage and wish you the best of luck.

There was something about the way he spoke that set Jasy on edge. No captain was that friendly to Hikers, not unless there was a hidden agenda.

Not wanting to risk that the captain had alerted the law officials of his extra cargo, Jasy quickly grabbed her things and went to wait by the cargo doors to disembark as soon as they were open wide enough to allow her to slip through. The steam they released when they opened would cover up her exit, but she would have to be fast to make use of it.

The ship shuddered as it approached the dock and Jasy closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. The other Hikers still sat where they had been; none of them suspected that anything was wrong.

As soon as she heard the hiss of the doors opening, Jasy shifted, and once the door was open just wide enough to slide through, she did so, slipping underneath the dock instead of on top of it. She pulled a hat out of her bag and, tying her auburn