High Places — Nina M. Osier

It's been 20 years since Maisie Thurlow last saw her big sister. First a team of government "minders" tore their family from the pastoral religious colony that was the only home small Maisie had known. Then a mutiny aboard the star liner carrying the displaced colonists separated the sisters, with Eve boarding a lifeboat aimed toward a vacant but inhabitable planet. Now Maisie is Captain Thurlow of Star Guard, and she can't resist trying to find her sister when her patrol ship's course takes it temptingly near that remote world. That's when Murphy's Law kicks in with a vengeance, bringing Maisie's ship down in flames on the mountain where Eve's lifeboat landed. Throwing Maisie and her surviving crew members into a survival scenario none of their training anticipated, because this planet's atmosphere does strange things to Humans...and they're just as trapped on it, now, as Eve is.