Cygnus Five Series by Alex Beecroft, Alex Oliver

Aurora Campos's days of heroism are behind her. Deemed a shameful failure, she now captains Froward, a prison transport filled with criminals sent out to colonise new worlds for the Kingdom. Bryant Jones, technocrat and falsely accused 'murderer', is not going to let his future be taken away by this low-tech luddite of a woman and her backward society. He’s staging a break out from Aurora’s brig when the Froward is shot down around them. Cygnus Five is a failing colony... moreAurora Campos's days of heroism are behind her. Deemed a shameful failure, she now captains Froward, a prison transport filled with criminals sent out to colonise new worlds for the Kingdom. Bryant Jones, technocrat and falsely accused 'murderer', is not going to let his future be taken away by this low-tech luddite of a woman and her backward society. He’s staging a break out from Aurora’s brig when the Froward is shot down around them. Cygnus Five is a failing colony. Starving convicts have taken over and found themselves a spaceship wrecker among the ruins of an abandoned alien city. The only way off-world is the Governor's launch, sealed in its silo beneath the convicts' headquarters. But as they team up to capture it, Aurora and Bryant discover love, institutional betrayal and the lurking remnants of a self-destructive alien civilization. Soon they have bigger problems on their hands than their own survival. When they arrived, Aurora thought she had only her crew to rescue. As it turns out, she has to save the whole world. less

Hell hath no fury like a woman wrongedTaken advantage of by her superior officer, her career in ruins, war hero Captain Aurora Campos has been shipwrecked on a penal planet. Abandoned by her government, with no one to trust but the escaped deviant she was sent there to capture, she has a lot of rage to go around.They want her to disappear. To shut up. To stop making waves. But that's not going to happen.For Bryant Jones – the 'deviant' in question – Aurora is the villain... moreHell hath no fury like a woman wrongedTaken advantage of by her superior officer, her career in ruins, war hero Captain Aurora Campos has been shipwrecked on a penal planet. Abandoned by her government, with no one to trust but the escaped deviant she was sent there to capture, she has a lot of rage to go around.They want her to disappear. To shut up. To stop making waves. But that's not going to happen.For Bryant Jones – the 'deviant' in question – Aurora is the villain. She's the war-dog of a Christian Fundamentalist state that conquered his world and arrested him for 'unnatural' crimes. 'Crimes' that were perfectly legal in his world.Yet in the face of a planet full of angry felons, it's a case of work together or die.And sometimes all it takes to light the fire that changes history is two victims united against a common oppressor.(Though discovering an abandoned alien doomsday weapon also helps.) less