The decision

The virtual meeting room.

The giant screen in front of all of them was showing a few satellite images. And at the edge of the screen, there were some unclear pictures of various beasts.

Different grades of ice trolls, ice dwarves, and a few jagged wolves. Alas! Aiden wasn't here, and they didn't know the better name of the beasts.

"EXO-04Fa-02, EXO-04Fa-04, EXO-04Fa-06-11, EXO-04Fa-14-15 are the only beast we can identify." Leeroy looked at the gallery as he explained.

There were four rows in the gallery. The first row included his colleagues from planet EXO-04, the heads of 4 research strongholds, 3 mining strongholds, 3 military strongholds and one Dock.

On the second row, there were 7 generals of the federation. Three 5-star army generals, two 5-star Air Marshals, a 5-star Admiral and a 5-star Space-exploration general. Leeroy could identify Lucas, Arudi, and a few others.

The row above them was the row of the nine directors. And there were five councilmen in the last row. Even for Leeroy, it was the first time he had seen so many councilmen at the same time. Alas! He couldn't see the face of them.

A number appeared on the edge of the many satellite images, as Leeroy explained, "As you can see from the time of all the attacks, it happened within thirty minutes. They were also carrying advanced weapons and armour…"

"Wait a minute, general." said the R&D director. With a smile on his face, he asked, "Are you telling me that in the age of space exploration, we should consider a few plated armours and blunt weapons as advance technologies?" Of course, a few rolls of laughter followed.

"What are you doing?" A stern voice from the last row changed the atmosphere again. The old but steady voice asked, "General Leeroy, what is your point?"

"Councilman, I think they are intelligent beings." Leeroy had no confusion about it, "We need to send an all-out attack so we can wipe out all of them once and for all. We need to send the shock troop."

"That's your opinion." One of the stronghold heads voiced his opposition. "Even if they have little intelligence, there is no way they could go against the EM rail gun, Laser penetrator or particle disintegrator."

"General, we need to remember that we have already lost a stronghold to them." Leeroy had no intention of stepping back. He said, "The stronghold had already turned into a giant chunk of ice and we do not understand what did it."

As Leeroy said, the screen showed a gigantic chunk of clear blue ice. And if one were to observe closely, they could identify the outline of the city frozen inside of it.

"The area around the stronghold has turned into a forbidden zone." Leeroy frowned as he continued, "they killed all the four reconnaissance teams. The only soldier who returned alive had turned into an idiot."

"What about satellite scan?"

The screen behind him turned into a few images of static screens. Leeroy shook his head before answering, "The satellite couldn't penetrate the layer of cloud that had covered the area."

"Are you telling me that those multi-million credit satellites, which could scan a few hundred meters inside the ground, couldn't penetrate a layer of the cloud?"

Leeroy had been expecting a frown on the face of the military director, but all he could do was nod. The next question, however, came from the last row. "Isn't that the same problem we face on Earth?"

"It's similar." The military director said. "No, it might be for the same reason."

"Yes." One councilman answered. "Does that mean this planet has also evolved?"

"We couldn't say that, sir." said the director of R&D. "A planet is not a living organism. There is no way it could evolve. And we had also checked for life on the planet before setting up a base here and…"

"We know there was nothing, but here they are," The Exploration general, Arudi said. "Even if we call them monsters, they are humanoid social animals who could use medieval technology, and the most surprising thing is that they can use mana."

"But what caused the formation of a mana infested cloud? It couldn't be just because of mana. We have never seen such a phenomenon on Planet Will."

"Could it be because of the concentration of the Tradecon particle?" One director suggested, "After all, the concentration of Tradecon on Planet Will is 100 times lower than that of the EXO-04."

"That couldn't be." One of the heads of the research stronghold intervened, "if mana was the reason, wouldn't the cloud have formed all over the planet, not just over the stronghold?"

What he said was true, and they all understood it. But that didn't explain the strange weather phenomenon.

"General, did you observe a similar phenomenon elsewhere?"

Listening to the question of a councilman, a smile appeared on Leeroy's face. As if he was waiting for the question. The images on the screen have changed again. It still showed static screens, but the coordinates on it were different. He said "Yes" and continued.

"These are the areas where the outposts were located. After the attack, we tried to take a satellite image of the area, but failed."

"Have you tried to send soldiers?"

"No, we dared not to." Leeroy shook his head, "We fear that they would meet the same end, and..."

The image on the screen changed again, as Leeroy explained, "As you can see, those beasts had surrounded the platoon we had sent to supply the research outpost #11. And if you look closer, you can see that few of the beasts were moving not on the ground, but through the underground."

His words dropped like a bomb, and then silence followed. But Leeroy continued, "We were lucky that before the attack, the command of the platoon asked us to scan the surroundings, so…"

"What happened to them?"

"It wasn't just them, we lost contact with all the seven convoys, those were sent in that direction." Leeroy said and displayed another picture, "But it might be because of the wit of the commander that two from this platoon had escaped the attack."

The screen showed the satellite image of two small dots running away, with a horde of black dots tailing them. Then the screen showed the image of Robin and Aiden.

"But we lost contact with them. We don't know what happened to them. We think they're dead." Leeroy added with a sigh.

"General," The voice came from the last row. It sounds calm. Yet Leeroy couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling, "Why was a rookie who didn't even complete his first week of seasoning training sent out on a field mission?"

"That's Aiden," Lucas spoke out loud. "What is happening here?"

After a moment of silence, with a frown on his face, the director of the R&D asked, "Is the current emergency more important than a rookie?"

"It's not." The same councilman spoke in a calm tone, "But I like to know what happened there. Director, do you have any problem with that?"

Hearing the words, the director couldn't help but shudder a little. However, another councilman said, "We need to focus on the issue in hand."

"Of course," the first councilman man said again, "but General Leeroy, I like to have a report on the rookie within one hour. I hope that won't be much of a problem."

An eerie silence followed his words. However, the least concerned person was Leeroy himself. He asked with a nod, "Councilman, should I send a rescue team for him?"

"There is no need," Those words from the councilman surprised Lucas for a moment, but his calm voice continued, "He could survive Earth for two months. It won't be much of a problem for him. Just let me know when he returns."

"And what about the attacks?" Leeroy asked. "I suggest that we should send a shock troop and kill all the monsters once for an all."

"General, it's not up to you to decide."

"But we should take some action."

"If we don't send the shock troops, we should at least send someone to take care of those beasts."

There were many opinions, but none of them was useful until the explorer general Arudi said, "We have a mother ship in the vicinity. Why don't we shoot the Earth-splitter beam on that frozen stronghold and see…"

"That's impossible."

"Shooting the Earth-splitter from the outer atmosphere may change the rotation of the planet, affect the atmosphere, and may cause long-term damage that would take years to reverse."

Hearing the words of opposition, Arudi frowned and said with disdain, "You are pumping mana into the atmosphere of a clean planet, changing the environment, experimenting with local flora and fauna, yet you are afraid of the Earth-Splitter?"

"WE can't do that," said one director, who gave him the suitable reason. "If the people on the stronghold were frozen instantaneously, we still have a way to rescue them. But if we destroy the stronghold, we might kill the monster in the area, but will be giving up on them too."

"If they're frozen in the ice and we can't save them, then it's the same thing as being dead."

Nobody argued his words, but it was clear from their reaction that none of them wanted to shoot a beam that would destroy an entire continent with a single shot.

"We should send some specialized people," said one of the general who was sitting at the edge of the second row. "The one who can use mana."

As his words failed to create the expected response, he explained, "We know that the enemy could use mana. So why don't we send someone who can use mana, too? They might produce better results."

"Yes, we could send some from those stronghold academies."

"That's not bad at all. We could do that."

"That will help them get some real-life experience."

"No." It was the director of education who almost shouted, "They are the genius of the generation. They're the creme of the corps. They have no military experience. It is like sending them to their death."

"Come on. We are spending the best resources on them. Now they can give us back what we have spent on them. Keeping them on Will isn't going to do any good."

Another director chimed in, "Yes, we can set up a paid internship program. Like they have to work on one of the exoplanets for a year."

"Or we can make it compulsory."

"No, we can't do that. There are many big families…"

"Wwhh aaat hhhaap-ppeen…" Leeroy's strange reaction attracted their eyes as he stood in front of them. But they soon realized he wasn't alone.

"Whhhhyyyy?"

"Mmmmee ttttooo"

All those who were sitting on the first row were feeling the same problem. Their body started to pixelate, their voice cracked, and their body vanished.

However, their body returned with little trouble at the next moment. Everybody could understand that it was signalling problem until one of them pointed out that one of the heads of the stronghold wasn't there.

It took a few minutes before they received another message. "The mining strongholds no 05 is under attack."