Dekason

Carkston Monitor is a skilled swordsman stranded on his backward home planet of Kvasir - no prospects, no allies, and one failed scheme to his name - when a spaceship captain named Welloons arrives and changes everything.

Transported across twenty-five light-years to Dekason, a sophisticated but declining world, Carkston is sold at auction to Ahteen the Younger, scion of the powerful Geotherm Syndicate. His new role: fencing master, auxiliary bodyguard, and living novelty exhibit at a society that prizes jacket-color etiquette and dueling over genuine accomplishment.

The arrangement fractures when Ahteen scapegoats Carkston to salvage his own social standing after a duel goes badly wrong. Now Carkston has no contract, no legal standing as a non-citizen, and a vindictive rival sending licensed killers after him. His options: disappear, surrender, or fight back.

He fights back.

Teaming with Bestian - head of an Unsanctioned House and reluctant ally with his own scores to settle - Carkston engineers a scheme that turns Dekason's aristocratic power structure against itself. Classic sword-and-planet adventure fiction in the tradition of Leigh Brackett and Jack Vance: fish-out-of-water hero, dying civilization, sharp steel, and sharper wit.

Book One of The Twilight Galaxy Series. A complete story, and the start of a complete trilogy: the adventure continues in Long Gambit and Brazos.