Lost With Nothing to Lose — Vincent Berg

Unable to find a home and acceptance on Earth, an intrepid band of misplaced youth seeks their ancestral home among the stars. Unfortunately, their reception is not quite what they hoped. The home they discover is a hostile place, involved in a huge interstellar war with a hostile alien species. Everyone is on guard, and the newcomers are viewed as untrusted interlopers. They search for a place in a world with no use for them, and with no place to turn for assistance.

Faced with an unwinnable situation, they seek to change the rules, risking arrest, trial and even death in hopes of fixing a world they know little about. To win friends they much prove the unprovable, face down an unstopable enemy, and convince those ready to kill them that they known Tandorians better than they know themselves.