Commander Caralee Danforth follows orders to hurry from Star Base 9 to Academy to go aboard the Phoenix Class Battle Star Ceres, host for the Les Mesdemoiselles d'Confederation Beauty Pageant. Next thing she knows, she is watching the pageant from a box with Admiral Noguri Yamamoto. Why the rush to get her to Ceres in time for the pageant? To prepare her to be named Captain of the Wolf Class Star Destroyer Concord, to say nothing of Flag Captain for Commodore Robert Rand, commanding the Red Squadron. The evil Churchmen who had hoped to split the Confederation down the middle by proving the member species can't work together have learned how wrong they could be. Caralee must work with Cdr. Rand, Jeremy Branfield, and the judges from the nine species participating in the pageant to return the pageant participants to their home worlds and begin recruiting new participants for the next pageant. A simple, boring task, right? Not when one of the judges is the mysterious 'Rrr'yan'rrithas, Head of the Church Universal and Renewed, who has decided he must truly renew the Church by turning it inside out-without any of his underlings realizing he's turned away from the worship of the Dragon. And not when those evil underlings will do everything in their power to rebuild the Church to its former glory at the command of the Dragon.