Galactic Odyssey
Keith Laumer
 Down on his luck college dropout Billy Danger shelters from a sleet storm in what he thinks is a corn silo, but which turns out to be a spaceship containing a party of upper-class hunters from the planet Zeridajh, from half-way across the Milky Way. They take him on as a gun-bearer, and after landing on a desert world, the two men are both killed, and Billy is left alone with the beautiful Princess Raire. Since only the men knew the password to re-enter the spaceship they are effectively marooned. They signal for help via a radio they find in an abandoned spaceship that has crashed into a nearby ravine. Unfortunately some none-too-friendly aliens answer the call and kidnap the princess, and then, clumsily, try to kill Billy. He survives, and is nursed back to health by a giant tabby cat who survived from the derelict spaceship. A more friendly bunch of aliens arrive and give him a ride to another planet, where he sets out in his quest to find the princess. He has many adventures across the galaxy, including being captured on a spying mission, where he is forced to ransom his friends' lives by giving up his right eye. Eventually he finds the princess, but she has been enslaved. He buys her freedom, and that of another human, but the human slave kidnaps the princess and he is forced into slavery himself. He eventually escapes, revenges himself on his enemies, and flys away with the princess.