A review by brucefarrar
The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro

4.0

Spinning out of control at superluminal speed wounded warrior Kelricson Garlin Valdoria kya Skolia desperately tries to regain control of his spacecraft. The best he can do is to force an emergency crash-landing on the restricted planet Coba. It’s been restricted by the powerful Skolian Empire at the request of the planet’s ruling matriarchy, who do not want imperial cultural contamination. He survives the crash, but is imprisoned by his rescuers, the manager of Dahl, one of the great estates and Ixpar, successor to the planet’s ruler. The restriction specifies no interaction between natives and imperial citizens. Keleric should be taken immediately to the imperial spaceport, but he will die before they can get him there. And they do not want to deliver a corpse to the Empire, especially the corpse of a member of the imperial family.