The Refugee Ruse — Christine Pope

A deserter. A grifter. A stolen ship. And one last chance for freedom…With the remote Zeta Tau prison station about to be pounded into space dust — and with no help coming from Gaia’s crumbling star empire — Captain Landon Beck races to release one particular inmate before she’s abandoned to the tender mercies of the invading pirates and mercenaries.Thanks to that bit of temporary insanity — or maybe a crusading streak that refuses to die — he has company on the badly damaged, antiquated transport ship he hopes to fly to anonymity and freedom: Dhani Warlow, a small-time grifter, dark-eyed and delicate, with an uncommon amount of sass.After five years surviving in the underbelly of Gaian society, Dhani has seen the worst of the Consortium’s crimes against man, Zhore, and dozens of other peoples across the galaxy. Even so, in Landon she senses a man of honor beneath the hated uniform.As they limp from system to system on their quest to reach Iradia and freedom, Landon and Dhani earn one another’s trust and respect, finally taking refuge in the only safe place left — each other’s arms. But as the Consortium crumbles around them, they might not survive one last attempt on their lives….Note: This is the final book in the Gaian Consortium series. Although each book has a standalone romance, the events going on in the background have built toward what we see in The Refugee Ruse, which is the looming collapse of the Consortium’s star empire.