A little uncivil disobedience is good for the soul... Gaia Jones is on A-Ki space station for one reason, and it's not to ogle the hermaphroditic aliens. She's out to make a name for herself and her line of intoxicating human snacks. Not easy in A-Ki's tightly controlled society. Her task gets even more delicate when she rushes to the aid of a dying alien--and finds herself the unwilling guardian of a shunned alien ghost named Kenjan. And the new owner of his slave. The danger mounts when Kenjan's grieving lover, the powerful leader of the Kishocha, offers her a dream and a nightmare rolled into one: a new store all her own with a strange double purpose--half snack bar, half shrine. The catch? She must spend the rest of her life there, tending Kenjan the Heretic's ghost. Or the entire station will be destroyed. There's only one way to gain both her freedom and justice for Kenjan--teach both the powerful government elite and the Kishocha theocracy a lesson in uncivil disobedience...

Submission: Main character is mixed race/ethnically ambiguous. The alien characters are nonbinary.