This author does not own the Star vs. the Forces of Evil franchise. This story was written for personal amusement.
"We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the Joint Government occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war."
Senator John F. Kennedy (L, Massachusetts Province), speaking on the successful completion of the Joint Government's first manned Mars surface mission, Tsinghua University, September 1962.
Biological Research Range
Io, Jovian System
Io (pronounced eye-oh), the innermost of the four big Jovian moons, sits smack bang in the middle of Jupiter's enormous radiation belt. On Io, you can receive a lethal dose of radiation in hours, which will cause you to vomit blood, poop blood, and bleed internally until you die in two weeks or so.
Jupiter's glowing belts of death are charged by Io's many gigantic volcanoes, which pump vast amounts of charged particles deep into space. The volcanism is in turn caused by tidal heating of Io's interior as it travels around Jupiter.
These volcanoes also spew forth gargantuan lava flows, which leave behind yellow, sulfurous rock.
As a result, Io looks like a giant, ugly, rimless pizza.
Close-up, the walkable bits of Io consist of broken, colorful plains of solidified basalts. The airless black sky is dominated by Jupiter. The glowing orb of orange and white stripes that hangs in the sky is two thousand times larger than a full moon.
It is a horrible place to live, and, after Venus, is the second closest thing to the popular conception of hell in the Solar System.
"You know, I think I'm going to move here after I retire! The view of Jupiter from this place is… whoo!"
Dr. Star Butterfly, safe in her magnetically-shielded spacesuit, took in the view from the top of a bright yellow boulder, even as she placed another blue-stained rock sample into a collection tube.
A voice came in on her helmet radio.
"Star, get a move on! Incoming in ninety seconds!"
Star collected another sample.
"Come on, Marco! I'll have plenty of time to work out my retirement plans after we finish teasing out the secrets from little samply-wamply here." Star held the sample tube to her eyes and began coddling it. "Who's a good Io-adapted mutant bacterium? You're a cute radiation-resistant fella, aren't ya? Aren't ya? I just want to stick your genes in something else right this instant!"
"STAR! Get moving! Artillery inbound!"
"Marco! You and the Marines had one job! To let me do my job! But are you doing it? NOOO!"
"STAR! I'm not kidding! Get to cover!"
"Marco, I can hear the chatter as well as you can. Those rounds won't be here for another minute. Isaac Newton is king up here. It's not like they can be early."
"Get to cover!"
"Ughhh…"
Star stowed her sample pack, and stomped off to the foxhole. Marco, clad in another bulky orange suit, yanked her down.
"Okay, I'm down. Are you happy?"
"I'm about to be blown up by scrap metal! Do I look like I'm happy?!"
A marine, clad in a mottled grey hardsuit and powered exoskeleton (and apparently on the same channel), looked quizzically at Marco. Star noted her expression, and turned towards Marco.
"Marco, the marines here make their living out of getting shot at. Could you please show a little more sensitivity?"
"I should be up in CIC, in a comfy couch watching dots on a screen! What the heck am I doing down here?!"
Wet navy warships are not commanded from their bridges (which are mostly just for steering the ship), but are rather controlled from their combat information centers, or CICs, deep in their hulls. Space warships lack bridges altogether.
"Sensitivity, Marco. And I don't think I like your Earther attitude towards this place. It's nice. It's ridiculously dry, but there are plenty of metals and minerals. If you want power, all you have to do is build one of those."
Star pointed upwards towards the giant Powersat Consortium™ electro-dynamic tether, a long, nearly invisible silk-like strand that cut the black sky in half as it stretched towards Jupiter. The tether stole gigawatts of energy from Io's orbital motion as Io pulled it through Jupiter's vast magnetic field, slowing the moon down ever so slightly.
"Star, this place kills you in minutes! It's ridiculous we're fighting over this godforsaken hellhole!"
"Are you crazy? Those tethers are the key to the whole Jovian System! Of course we're fighting over this place! And it was totally ours to begin with!"
"Gah!"
The marine pushed the squabbling pair to the ground. "IMPACT!"
At three kilometers per second, a kilogram of inert matter has kinetic energy roughly equivalent to one kilogram of TNT. As kinetic energy scales quadratically with velocity, the twenty tonnes of shredded steel scrap hurtling towards Io at nine kilometers per second had the kinetic energy of nearly two hundred tonnes of TNT. The thousands of dangerous fragments were nigh-unstoppable with the small aerospace defense lasers the Marines had at their disposal.
A thousand blinding starbursts lit up the craggy landscape, and an odd, sharp rumble rang through the ground. No noise could be transmitted in the super-thin gas that passed for an atmosphere on Io.
Ferguson, safe and sound aboard the JGSS Invisible Pink Unicorn (隱形粉紅獨角獸) came in over the comm.
"Rounds have splashed."
No kidding, thought Marco.
"All counter-artillery lasers dead. Hostile tug inbound in two. Friendly dropship's en route. Invisible Pink Unicorn will be rising in twenty."
Marco winced at the name, picked by ultranationalist politicians to spite the Arabian Coalition. The name screamed belligerence and antagonism, and in a Solar System on a knife's edge… it was suboptimal.
It was also girly as heck. Oh, why couldn't he have been given the JGSS Vermicious Knid instead?
The Euros – well, their terroristic proxies in the Jovian System - had timed their attack well. On the part of its Low Io Orbit that took it around the other side of the moon, Marco's frigate had been powerless to intervene as a civilian chem-fuel tug abruptly changed course to bombard the camp – and another began to land at their position.
Bound to its orbit by the laws of physics, JGSS Invisible Pink Unicorn would be equally powerless to intervene in the upcoming firefight.
In twenty minutes, however, the frigate's orbital track around Io would carry it above the battlefield. From the perspective of the Marines, the Invisible Pink Unicorn would rise above the horizon like a miniature moon, ready to smite the Marines' enemies with big ultraviolet lasers.
They would have to hold out until then.
Captain Jackie Lynn Thomas, commander of the frigate's Marine platoon, reported in next.
"Sergeant Amberg reports two casualties, both KIA. Civilians secure in slit trenches. All forces fall back to Sergeant Amberg's position. Grab the VIPs."
The marine grabbed the duo, and sprinted off towards the rendezvous point, taking long, low leaps across the terrain. A short distance away, Star caught sight of StarFan13, running to keep up with her marine escort. It was nice to have help on field expeditions like these.
They passed the shredded remains of their camp. Inflatable Kevlar domes lay mangled beyond recognition, their contents scattered hundreds of meters away. The drill-corer had been reduced to a mangled pile of metal. The surface scraper lay on its side. The field laboratory pod had taken a direct hit from a one-dollar piece of scrap metal, destroying millions of dollars worth of scientific equipment in an instant. Star could just make out the logo of the Butterfly Corporation (蝴蝶集團) amongst the twisted aluminium.
Star tried not to cry. What monsters could have such loathing for scientific research? All they had wanted to do was create better strains of radiation-resistant bacterial bio-leachers to extract Io's metal deposits (and maybe pick up a few new patentable genes in the process). The bacteria would greatly simplify exploitation of Io's resources, and hasten settlement of Io. Who could be against that?
Oh, of course. It would hasten Joint Government settlement of Io. The Euros, Japanese, and East African Confederation would definitely be against that.
They stopped at a small crater, covered in blue mineral deposits and surrounded by colored basalts. Star picked up a bent metal spike – one of the original seeders the Butterfly Corporation had dropped from orbit to inoculate a square kilometer of sterile basalt.
Protected from the deadly radiation by the dirt above them, the bacteria had multiplied and spread from their seeders. As the replication process was imperfect, mutant strains of bacteria emerged. Some were more suited to their environment, some less.
The strains most suited to the harsh conditions of Io were able to multiply faster than their less-adapted counterparts, dominating the population. Among their sloppy copies, some would be even better adapted…
…and the cycle would repeat itself until the rugged landscape was filled with mineral-extracting bacteria that were perfectly suited for use on Io, just waiting to be harvested by hyperactive scientists and translated into products & profits by innovative corporations.
A star descended from the night sky, and split into three. The Marines opened fire with shoulder-fired missiles. The tug died, as did one of the inbound drop pods. Countermeasures from the other drop pods (where had the insurgents gotten their hands on those?) allowed them to survive.
The starlets grew into little fuel-filled aluminium balloons, each surrounded by a ring of hardsuited insurgents. Retrorockets burned hard and airbags inflated as the drop pods slammed into the alien landscape two hundred meters from their position.
Star took aim at the nearest pod with her rocket-bullet assault rifle, and opened fire at an insurgent, running unnaturally fast thanks to his powered exoskeleton. The figure collapsed, red droplets spraying from his suit. Figures scattered from the landed pods. The hardsuited figures wore the orange-and-white armbands of the Front de Protection Jovien. Jupiter Protection Front.
A marine fired a camera grenade skyward, giving Jackie a clear view of the battlefield on her helmet display.
Jackie screamed orders into her mike. "Automatic on left! Rifles on right! Go, go, go! Keep 'em behind that… ridge thing!" She highlighted a low clump of raised basalt on helmet displays.
Brilliant (i.e. very smart) grenades exploded over enemy positions, lancing enemy troops with explosively formed penetrators (superfast globules of molten metal) from ten meters away.
"Grenades right, grenades right! They're pushing!"
The grenade-machine-gun turned on its tripod, and explosions went off in the distance.
An enemy grenade screamed overhead, and the automatic grenade launcher (and the Marine gunner) exploded in a bolt of hot copper.
"Darnit!" Jackie fell prone, and began shooting. Mindful of enemy camera grenades, she moved every few shots.
A figure tried to run back to the drop pod. Star dropped him. "Guys! They're trying to grab something from the pod!"
Jackie nodded. "Chet, Sabrina, left and right! Watch the pods! Suppress!" She turned to Marco.
"Commander Diaz, move repeatedly! But don't crouch, lie prone! Star shoots straighter than you!"
Marco cursed his rudimentary Space Force weapons training.
The enemy tried to rush their position several times, but failed even as Marine casualties began to mount.
Ferguson came in over the comm. "Rising in one minute, people! Hold on!"
Jackie's eyes went wide! "Darnit! Inbound Banzai charge!"
Ten insurgents – all of the survivors, Star presumed – rushed forward from their positions, hoping to do as much damage as possible before the JGSS Invisible Pink Unicorn rose over the horizon and finished the fight with ship-to-ship lasers.
They failed, and died ignominiously under a hail of fire. A new star rose in the sky, and dropped off a smaller star to meet the exhausted marines.
A few hidden missiles tried to shoot down the lander as it hurtled back to orbit, but they were out of the frying pan at last.