The Pirates of Ersatz

Bron Hoddan grew up on Zan, a planet of space pirates who swear they are simple farmers, and he has spent two years trying to become a respectable engineer on super-civilized Walden. Then he breaks into a power station to prove his new receptor works, a dead man turns up beside it, and Walden decides he is the most dangerous man on the planet.

Smuggled off-world by a sympathetic diplomat, Hoddan lands on Darth, a backward world of castles, horses and feuding lords, where a man with a stun-pistol and a little engineering can become a legend overnight. Soon he is rescuing the Lady Fani from an abduction, gathering a band of followers, and discovering that the family trade may suit him better than he ever wanted to admit.