Okay, seeing as I’m planning to use this story for a short story contest at my school, I figured I may as well post the revised edition here. Anyway, I’ve revised the story and think I have a fair chance at the contest. Better than last year’s anyway. God I was an idiot, making a short story out of Lance for a contest…

Foregone Conclusion

The air was filled with a sound like a thousand angry bees as the electric whip came down hard upon Ark’s back, stinging with more pain than those thousand bees could ever inflict.

“Work faster, scum!” shouted Ark’s space-pirate taskmaster.

Ark quickly pushed his long, spiky grey hair out of his vivid, emerald green eyes, and bent down. He picked up the heavy piece of scrap metal he had dropped, ignoring the jagged edges that cut his fingers like rusty knives, and lugged it over to the disposal truck. All around him, miserable looking humans did the same, occasionally being hit with the electric whip by an ugly, uniformed alien. Each alien looked the same except for their colouring, which ranged from dark grey to blood red. Their skulls were elongated at the back making their features even more repulsive. Their eyes were bloodshot and bulging, and their uniforms were a form of rubbery armour that covered their torsos and upper legs like an insectoid carapace.

Ark watched the space-pirates moving about their charges, torturing them every so often just for the fun of it. Woman or man, old or young, it didn’t matter. Every human was a slave to the will of the space-pirates.

The grey-haired human continued the tedious labour until finally the perpetually orange sky grew a little darker.

“All right, scum. You can go now. Bright and early tomorrow, eh?” The space-pirate laughed and gave Ark another jolt with the whip.

The grey haired boy stumbled through the streets of the ruined city. He could almost remember what life had been like before the aliens invaded Earth. The sky had been a clear azure, and clouds had been fluffy and white; not the orange and black of today. Man had finally achieved world peace after centuries of war. And then they came.

It had been terrifying. The giant public transportation airships of Earth were the first that perished to the space-pirates. Years—nay, centuries—of research and trying, down the drain in a matter of hours. The starships of the invading aliens had screamed through the air, blasting cities apart, while the aliens themselves came on foot with their ray guns and laser blasters.

They killed the humans that fought, and enslaved those who didn’t. For ten years, since he was six, Ark had submitted to the space-pirate rule.

Ark arrived at his scrap-dwelling, which brought him out of his reverie. It was constructed from the remnants of the destroyed city, and looked like what some kind of old robot had vomited the component parts of the shack, as did everyone else’s dwellings. He pushed open the door made from half a car hood and stepped inside. He ripped open the package of slave-rations that lay on the makeshift table, devouring the food hungrily. It tasted like ashes but he ate it with gusto, knowing he would regret it later if he didn’t. Then he flopped down on the broken mattress and fell asleep instantly.

Ark woke up early the next morning feeling as tired as he had before he slept. He quickly wolfed down the cold gruel that had been delivered in the night, and left his dwelling. As he walked, he took out a photograph of his father from his pocket. His father had been part of the military force that had fought the space-pirates in the beginning. Ark even still had his father’s broken blaster that had been salvaged from the wreck of his destroyed battle cruiser.

The grey-haired boy hastily stowed the photo inside his pocket as he approached the workplace. The space-pirates wanted the rubble cleared so that they could colonize the planet. The aliens that were on Earth called themselves the Forerunners, and they were on Earth to make the planet hospitable for the rest of their people.

The Earthlings had many ideas as to why the aliens were on their planet. The prevailing theory was that the space-pirates’ own planet had become too polluted. Others thought that maybe the space-pirates were destroying the humans for another, more powerful race. Whatever the people thought, they knew one thing: the space-pirates were pure evil.

Ark got straight to work, picking up a large piece of concrete. Years of this tedious manual labour had made him strong enough to lift heavy loads. He brought the piece of rubble to the disposal truck, laying it on its bed.

“Good, you’re here,” said a space-pirate. “Remember, no slacking!”

“Yes sir,” Ark said through clenched teeth.

“No talking!” ordered the space-pirate, who sent a jolt of electricity through his charge’s body.

Ark nodded, wincing, and then got back to work.

Ark’s body stung horribly by the time the workday was over. He had angered the space-pirates by reassuring another slave, and had earned quite a shocking for that. Luckily, tomorrow was his day off, so he would be able to heal himself a little.

Ark was about to walk back to his dwelling when he heard, “Worker number 326?”

“Yes, sir?” Ark replied. 326 was Ark’s assigned number, and only the space-pirates addressed slaves by their numbers.

“Come here.”

Ark walked over to the space-pirate who spoke. “Do you need something, sir?”

“You do not reassure, speak with, or communicate with any slaves during work hours! Understand?!”

“Yes, sir” Ark replied hastily. “It’s just that the child was crying, and making it difficult for the sensible slaves to work,” he said, lying in the hope that he would be able to avoid another shocking. He wasn’t so lucky.

“Aaauuggghhhh!!!” Ark screamed as the merciless alien electrically beat him.

“Get going. You’re lucky tomorrow’s break-day.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you sir. Right away, sir. Umm, sir? You dropped…” But the space-pirate had already left.

Ark bent down and picked up a small, metal object that the space-pirate had dropped. He held it up to his vision. It was small and hexagonal, with a lightning bolt emblem on it. It was the kind of battery used to power electric whips and laser blasters. Ark quickly shoved it in his pocket and ran back to his dwelling.

Ark rummaged around on his broken shelf until he found his father’s old blaster. It looked like the primitive water guns that Ark used to play with before the invasion, except that it was made of metal, not plastic. The casing was cracked, but that didn’t matter much.

Ark placed the hexagonal battery inside the blaster, and lights on it whirred to life. Then he had an idea.

He waited for a patrol space-pirate to walk past. Then, taking careful aim from his window, he pulled the trigger. A beam of red light shot out of the flashing barrel, hitting the patroller right in the chest. The pirate stood dumfounded for a moment, and then fell over dead. Ark grinned as the alien toppled over, and then hid the blaster under his mattress.

The next day Ark decided that he would pay the space-pirates a little surprise. He walked to the work place, ignoring the slaves’ questions as to where he was going on his blessed day off. Finally, the work place came into view. He saw the slaves who didn’t have a day off working, the children crying, and being shocked. Ark’s blood began to boil as anger grew inside him. He saw one alien about to shock a child barely six years old. Ark ran foreword, shouting, “Hey! Stop!”

Ark took careful aim, and blasted the space-pirate, who fell down. The slaves all cheered as Ark blasted the others. Quickly the remaining space-pirates brandished their electric whips and began advancing on Ark, but the grey haired boy had the advantage of having a long-range weapon. He blasted them, thinking, Now there’s hope for Earth… Suddenly one of the space-pirates succeeded in shooting, landing a beam of red light right above Ark’s heart. The world gave a great lurch, and Ark was falling through blackness.

Ark awoke in a cold sweat. A beam of moonlight illuminated his dwelling made of scrap metal. Just a dream, he thought. Same as always. Nobody can defeat the space-pirates. They’re here to stay. And how could one kid do it anyway?

The slave rolled onto his side to go back to sleep, thinking of the day of hard labour that awaited him.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that. By the way, to anyone reading VICE, the next chapter might be up in a few weeks if I can find the time. Thanks for reading.