Chapter Seven

Unveiling

The two women did not have to want for assistance in getting either their supplies or bags or a bikini clad young woman safely into the hotel and settled in a large suite of rooms. They got Tia under some covers in a nice, comfortable bed, and though they had spent the entire first half of the day soaking wet, this time it was hot showers for aching, exhausted muscles and then to their own beds.

The next morning they debated waking their friend who, though the tricorder and Liz's examination showed to be in good health, showed no inclination at all toward waking up or going out. They finally decided they could 'risk' spending an hour or so looking around. But when they returned to their suite, they found Tia still thoroughly asleep. They stood on either side of her bed, Liz scanning her with her tricorder. Hoshi watched closely, not without a measure of apprehension, but whatever Liz had found, as she put away the tricorder, seemed to have satisfied her.

"I'm going to wake her." Liz decided. "Twenty two hours is all anyone deserves."

"There no need is." Tia said; eyes still closed. "I awake am." They were surprised, her voice was slightly different. Where before it had been melodious, to it was added a gentle … something neither could immediately define from only seven words, but it gave her tones a mellow seductiveness. She opened her eyes and sat up, the blanket falling away. "Thank you, my sisters."

"You're welcome." Hoshi was the first to find her voice.

"We were glad to help."

Tia pushed the covers off her body, looking down at herself appraisingly. After a moment, she looked up at them. "A mirror there is?"

"Right over here." Liz pointed to an alcove a few feet away. Tia got off the bed, and almost stumbled had they not caught her. In the first instant she started to look over their heads, then finding the first difference in her new body.

"I taller am." She said in a voice like ear candy.

"Almost eleven centimeters." Liz confirmed. They steadied her as she walked on bare feet over to the full length mirror, and she stared in astonishment at the refection of the three of them. Clad still only in Liz's 'borrowed' bikini, she was openly amazed at what she saw. She was about the height of either of her friends, and her body was definitely more mature.

"More than hoped I." She whispered. Where before her body had been extremely attractive (in fact Liz had often thought 'unfairly sexy') she was now stunning. Proportionately unchanged relative to her new height, her body was now clearly that of a woman, rather than the precocious girl she had been.

Letting go of her friends as soon as she was sure she could stand on her own, she undid the strings holding the small garments in place, handing them off to Liz as she took stock of her new body, turning to view herself from every angle. Finally, she looked at the other women, asking the question most intently on her mind. "Do think you Shar-les like will?"

"Honey," Liz told her, "you're gonna knock him on his ass."

xxx

"We need to celebrate." Liz declared when Tia, having had her shower, came back into the main room, wrapping herself in a white robe.

"Celebrate?"

"Well, yeah. You've just been through … well, what do women do on your planet after this?"

"It a time for contemplation is; a time our new body use learn to."

"Oh, hell, you can do that when we get back to the ship! I'll have Phlox give you a few days off. You can do better than that here on Risa."

"What do?"

"Well, for one thing you need some new clothes. Even if you hadn't broken the zipper off, you'll never get into that uniform again." At that moment the communicator on the bureau beside Hoshi's bed beeped. She went to it and flipped open the antenna grid.

"Ensign Sato here."

"Hoshi!" Trip Tucker's voice came out of the unit, sounding stressed. "How is she?"

"Hello, Commander. Yes, she's fine." Tia took a step closer but Hoshi stopped her with an upraised hand. "She woke up about a half hour ago."

"Let me talk to her."

"Sorry, Commander, she's in the shower." She touched her finger to her lips, hushing Tia.

"Okay." She had never heard him sound so dejected. "Look, how is she?"

"Fine."

"Was there … much change?" Hoshi looked at her friend appraisingly.

"Not at all." She said with a grin. "That is, if you discount the wings and tail." She snapped the unit shut quickly, cutting his outraged protest squarely in half.

"Hoshi! Why did you that?" Tia protested, astonished. "Talk to him I wanted."

"You will – when you see him. I'm building him up to the point where he'll appreciate it all the more."

"You're building him up to a conniption!" Liz exclaimed. "I repeat; when they come to take you away I do not know you."

"Trust me." Liz shrugged.

"It's your curvy ass." She turned to Tia. "Come on. Shopping spree."

Tia looked from one woman to the other, feeling as lost as ever. "What a 'shopping spree' is?"

"Honey, you have missed out on so much!" Liz exclaimed. "A shopping spree is the most fun a woman can have standing up."

xxx

By the time the trio entered the fourth store their supply of new and fine dresses and other 'luxuries' had grown so large they had had to send it back to the hotel ahead of them. Of course, once unburdened, there was nothing to prevent them from beginning the process over again.

They chose the best clothing with a serene disregard for price. Not only were the choices they made of reasonable price but the Risans were almost so willing to accommodate that Liz and Hoshi actually felt guilty about haggling. They soon began to amass a staggering wardrobe.

Tia, in particular, discovered to her boundless delight that the Risan styles of clothing very closely approximated the light flowing garments she was used to. She had worn blouses, skirts, shorts and dresses aboard Enterprise because there was little more, but here she found such fashions as she was used to; so much so that she was caught up in overwhelming enchantment. Long and short, white, pastels, flaming bright colors, floral designs, everything was sampled until she was in near orgasmic delight. Liz and Hoshi pooled their funds for their friend, as even had this not been for her celebration, she had absolutely no funds of her own. In the end her total of new garments exceeded both of theirs combined. They had left the seventh store, having sent the second 'shipment' of goods to join the first at the hotel.

They were on their way out of the ninth store, Hoshi having called a firm halt to the excursion, when they passed a mannequin draped with a startling dress indeed. Fiery red, trimmed with a material that gave it an incendiary sheen, it was a long gown which started at the hips and went no higher. A single band of material started at the right hip, flaring wide across the chest to gather at the left shoulder where the material hung down the back to the hem. Only the weight of the material over the shoulder kept it in place. Tia stopped dead, staring at it, eyes wide in such longing as to take her breath away. Normally clothes meant little or nothing to her, until influenced by her friends today, but she was seeing herself in it when Shar-les would first see her.

Liz and Hoshi, standing behind her, exchanged glances, but Hoshi shook her head, her lips moving to a silent but emphatic 'no!' Tia reached for the skirt, feeling the material infinitely softer than silk, almost like a cloud given form. Liz fixed her friend with a look, but Hoshi mouthed the silent word 'broke'. Tia ran her hand along the material from waist to shoulder, reveling in its soft lightness, feeling it flow through her hand like rain. Hoshi responded to her friend's more intense look with a silently mouthed 'flat busted.' Tia ran her hands along the top and caressed the draping red waterfall, softer by far than the sheerest silk, letting it flow through her fingers, seeing Shar-les' eyes on her. Liz looked at Hoshi, who hung her head with a rueful if almost silent laugh mingled with a sigh of defeat.

xxx

The sun was setting in the northeast when they returned to their suite, getting ready for the evening. Hoshi insisted that they make a night of it at the nightclub downstairs. "But how can we?" Liz protested quietly. If they skipped dinner tonight, they could just pay for the rooms.

"I have a way." She picked up her communicator. "Sato to Commander Tucker." It did not take more than an instant.

"Hoshi, you had better have some good news, because I'm ready to chew neutronium."

"Well, if that's what you want to eat, meet us in the Starlight night club on the main level of the Paradise hotel in ninety minutes. Oh, and Commander; it's upscale, so wear your best and bring plenty of credits – you're buying." She snapped the circuit closed quickly.

"He's either going to kiss you or force you through an anti-matter injector."

"When he gets a look at her, he's going to forget about everything."

"You hope."

"Either way, I get to have dinner."

xxx

The Starlight club's motif lived up to its name. Through a dizzying application of holographic projection the vast expanse of the cosmos filled the room. Suns, comets, planets, stellar clusters, quasars, nebula and the spiral arms of distant galaxies stretched to infinity on all sides, above and below. The illusion that there was no floor, but that tables, patrons, waiters and orchestra all floated upon the same plane in the vastness of interstellar space made for a staggering vista; not for the squeamish, but for the space boomers prepared to enjoy it.

Trip Tucker, resplendent in full dress uniform, entered the vast expanse with his two more casually dressed shipmates. Jonathan Archer surveyed the setting appreciatively. "It's like walking in the cosmos." He said, listening to the soft music of flutes from the band situated beyond Antares. "Incredible."

"But where are they?" Trip insisted. As fascinating as the display was, this was not the view of heavenly bodies he'd come for.

"Over there, toward Aldebaran." Reed identified. They were indeed seated in the indicated direction. Hoshi and Liz could be seen in profile, the third woman had her back to them, and all they could see was a flow of golden hair over a trail of red. Trip stopped dead, and they saw in his eyes a mixture of anxiousness and anxiety.

Archer looked at his old friend with some sympathy, reminded of that moment seven months ago when he had first met Tia. He leaned closer. "Archer to Tucker: Lay in course and engage." Trip's surprised blink seemed to reach down to his toes.

"Aye, sir." He started forward across the room, his two friends following. Reed mimed loading a phase rifle and firing it into the man's head, Archer's shoulders shaking as he tried to keep from laughing in response.

x

As he approached the table, Liz and Hoshi both saw him coming peripherally but did not react or look at him. He stopped behind Tia. "Pardon me, Miss, would you care to dance?" He asked in his most suave tones. Tia looked over her shoulder, the brightness of her smile like a nova, in that it nearly sent the man careening into the nearest star.

"I love would to." She answered in a voice like seductive ear candy and stood up, mindful of the care required to wear the ultra-silken gown which clung to her body like a scarlet cloud, the weight of material hanging over her left shoulder barely noticeable. The floor length skirt hung low from her hips; a drape starting at the right hip crossed her chest with a flaring arc to fall over her left shoulder to the hem, its silken weight being the only thing holding her top in place. When she stood before him, Trip's mouth fell open and his eyes could not take in enough of her.

At the first instant he thought she was wearing particularly high heeled slippers, but impossible to judge in the unlimited vista below them he sensed it was not the case. She seemed older, as if he had not seen her for years though it had only been barely two days. She was changed in ways he could not fathom, and his wide, barely blinking eyes tried to take her in as he stared, speechless.

"Forward I looked have to you see…" She began, but then faltered as he continued staring. She looked Trip in the eye, feeling she had to get used to doing so more comfortably now that she was almost as tall as he. "Do you …" She began in a whisper, barely able to say it. "Do you me like?"

He didn't say anything, unable to take his eyes off her. After a moment her confidence faltered, and she looked to her friends in distress.

"That means he likes." Liz assured her.

"Yes!" Trip exclaimed, breaking free sharply from his paralysis. "You take my breath away." Again she looked to her friends.

"That a good thing is?" She asked apprehensively.

"A very good thing." Hoshi assured her.

"That's what's meant by 'knocking him on his ass'."

x

The three men were even more surprised at this, but let it go. Tia turned back to Trip with a dazzling smile. "Hoped I you like me would."

"I – I just had to get used to it. It's like … like … God, Tia, I don't have the words for it."

"I believe you did ask her to dance?" Liz said, bailing her friend out.

"Yes. Yes. Would you like to?" He offered her his arm, but as she took it she noticed Archer and Reed standing by. She looked at Archer with as luminous a smile.

"Galyas, Wrenaouq Archer, Kaslier Reed."

"Galyas, Miss Anlor." Archer replied. "You're looking …" He hunted for a word, but absolutely nothing seemed to fit, so he simply gave up. "Well."

"Feel I better much. Over the luuru is." She said unnecessarily. She was starting to enjoy their reactions now that her initial anxiety was over.

"Well, it seems to have done very well for you." Reed said, feeling like he should say something, and convinced he was sounding like a fool, but she just smiled brightly.

"Much used to getting it take will."

"Truer words were never spoken." She turned to Trip, who seemed to be recovering.

"Shar-les?"

"Mmm?"

She tried to keep a longing out of her voice, but could not. "Danced have I before never, though seen I have. This then first time will be. May dance with you I among the stars?"

"I shall be delighted, ma'am." She still held his arm, and they were about to step out when she hesitated again, looking at Archer.

"Anston, Wrenaouq. Know I prefer you in uniform us on planets to be," she smiled shyly, "but it longer fits not."

"Under – understandable, Miss Anlor. N-no need for uniforms on shore leave. What you're … wearing … is fine." Actually, Archer thought it was far more than 'fine', but kept that strictly to himself. The young woman was absolutely stunning.

x

Trip led her out onto the 'invisible' dance floor before the orchestra, which was playing a slow tune, mostly reeds and lutes, but remained so stunned that she actually began dancing with him before he realized it.

Archer and Reed stared at them, unable to look away. Tia was not only taller; almost as tall as Trip now, her head coming up past his eyes; but her body in the flowing scarlet half-gown was now that of a woman rather than a girl. As they sat down, Reed was surprised to see a look of near sadness on Liz's face. "What's wrong?"

"I just realized." She said wistfully, looking at the dancing couple. "Our little girl has grown up." They watched as the pair moved on the floor, bodies pressed close, swaying to the music of a slow, intimate dance. Trip was still a hundred thousand light years away from being the suave, debonair man he wanted to be; and they could tell that Tia was trying to hide having a difficult time adjusting to the differences in her 'new body' and to just enjoy the moment.

Reed shook his head. "Just when I'd thought I'd caught up on all her surprises…" Archer looked at him with a wry expression.

"I don't think we're ever going to catch up."