The Hashmedai evolved on a planet called Paryo that orbits a red dwarf star. As such it received little light and heat compared to Earth. Their world was mostly covered in permafrost apart from its equator which was warm enough for ice cold liquid water to exist. Naturally a species that evolved on a planet like that thrived in the cold and suffered in mild temperatures or hotter.
Rivera took notice of Foster and brought an unexpected end to her session. “OK that’s it for now, let’s take a break,” Rivera said, and then repeated in the Hashmedai language which sounded like Russian, no surprise considering all Hashmedai had an accent that was very similar.
The yoga students left Foster and Rivera alone, as the two women shook hands and introduced each other. Foster couldn’t help but ask. “How the hell did you do that?”
“I’ve been doing yoga for years,” said Rivera.
“I mean teach it to Hashmedai, especially in this heat are you trying to kill them?”
Rivera pointed to several buckets of ice located next to the yoga mats the Hashmedai were on. “They stay cool with those.”
“Still, they’re Hashmedai.”
“Now, now, the yoga is for sharing,” Rivera said. “These Hashmedai will take what they’ve learned and experienced and pass it on to the rest of their kind. Peace, wellbeing, love, they will not commit violent acts against our people.”
“Tell that to Radiance and the UNE.”
“I sense a bit of tension in you,” Rivera said and dragged Foster over to a vacant mat by her arm. “Let me introduce you to the basics.”
Rivera began to stretch and fold Foster’s body into some strange yoga form, out in the beating morning sunlight. Foster made sure to get a firm grip of her coffee cup.
“Uh, that’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why did you come?” Rivera saw the coffee cup in Foster’s hands, and took in its sweet soothing scent. “Is that pumpkin spice?”
“Hell, yeah it is.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Coffee shop around the corner.”
“There’s a coffee shop here?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I’ve been here for so long, and I never saw it.”
“Which is why I’m here,” Foster said. “You’ve been off the grid too long, time to come back.”
Rivera crossed her arms. “You’re not from around these parts, huh?”
“I’m from Los Angeles, born in Nashville if you wanna be exact.”
“Ah.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
In the aftermath of the Hashmedai invasion of Earth, several Hashmedai forces surrendered when they realized they were not going to win the war. The ships they had left that didn’t flee had been destroyed or crashed on Earth, effectively stranding them there. The Empire never sent ships to recover them so the thousands of Hashmedai soldiers and ship’s crew became a part of Earth’s population and offered to work as laborers to rebuild the cities they destroyed.
Radiance, who were mortal enemies to the Hashmedai race, insisted that humans hunted down and killed all surviving Hashmedai. The UNE became fearful of losing Radiance support and began to aggressively capture Hashmedai to hand over to Radiance, while discouraging human communities from getting close to the Hashmedai. Some communities around the world refused, choosing to accept and forgive the Hashmedai, and allowed them to live amongst them despite UNE and Radiance disapproval.
Said communities took up arms and formed an extremist group known as the Hashmedai Liberation Front (HLF) to protect the Hashmedai and human sympathizers that lived with them. Eventually what started as protection for the renegade communities turned into terrorist activities worldwide, thus labeling cities like Manila and Vancouver as UNE ‘Red Zones,’ and advising all Radiance races living on Earth to avoid them along with members of the UNE military.
“You used to do work with IESA, right?” Foster asked?
“And contract work for the UNE military,” Rivera replied. “Helped design some of their ships and program the EVE AI.”
“Wanna come back?”
“Thought about it, but I’m too deep here you know? Someone will find out about me caring for Hashmedai in this community.”
“Not if you’re eight point six light years away.”
“Sirius?”
“Yep.”
“I thought the Carl Sagan was scrapped in favor of another warship.”
“The President forced it through, been a secret this whole time.”
Rivera gazed at her human and Hashmedai students as they sat and downed bottles of water together in the shade. “Don’t suppose my students can come with me?”
“Afraid not, I have no control over the colonists we’ll be taking, and I doubt any of them will be anything other than human.”
Rivera walked over to the group and began to address them in the Hashmedai language probably giving them the heads-up she wouldn’t be living with them soon, Foster figured.
“You speak their language well,” Foster said after Rivera was finished.
“I speak, English, Filipino, Hashmedai, and all six dialects of Radiance.”
“So, you’re a language expert as well?”
“It helped since Radiance did give us their technology to build our ships while we merged it with reverse engineered Hashmedai tech. Not to mention I helped program the EVE AI to speak multiple languages, had to make sure it spoke those languages correctly. Oh, and I helped design the Earth-based language learning tools.”
“That how you learned all those languages?”
“Of course, there’s no way I’d be able to fluently speak, read, and write seven different alien languages so quickly.”
“Sorry, I just never understood how those worked.”
“You load the app onto a data pad, link it with a neural interface that taps into your brain, and from there it uploads small fragments of the selected language into your head each time you use it.”
“Kinda like ‘I know Kung-Fu’ sorta deal?”
“To put it lightly, there’s a bit more to it than that, for starters it reads your synaptic pathways so that—”
“And that’s why I want you on the team.” Foster said cutting her off. She didn’t fully understand technobabble, but knew that life in a system far away from Earth was going to need someone that did, just in case things went wrong. “You’re smart, you know shit I don’t, and say words I can’t even begin to figure out how to say.”
FOSTER’S HOUSE
Los Angeles, Earth, Sol system
February 28, 2033, 05:25 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster sat on her living room couch and debated how she was going to approach him when he arrived. So . . . we gotta talk, Hey, listen . . . Hey babe. I love you but . . .
Whatever she went with, it had to be soft, she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea and she didn’t want him to curl up in an emotional ball and be alone forever, he was still young, much younger than her. The doorbell rang, its chime had awakened her pet tabby cat, Starlet, from its slumber on the arm of her couch next to her. Foster opened the door and allowed her boyfriend Mike Fisher to enter, for the last time.
“Hey, Mikey,” she said to him.
“Hey, babe.”
The two sat down at the couch while Starlet leaped away and jumped up onto the nearby windowsill where the night sky hung above. Foster looked into Mike’s face, the same face she couldn’t resist kissing, the same face she thought she’d see a lot more often after learning she wasn’t selected to become a member of the original three ships set to explore the cosmos.
“So . . . we gotta talk.”
Mike’s face cringed at her words. “Oh no.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re breaking up with me?”