"I'll have to answer that in the privacy of the shuttle," Pharazon replied to Corina's question.  Taking a look around, Pharazon continued, "It looks like everyone's here, and it's time to board."  The boarding gate opened and Pharazon walked through the corridor to the shuttle, expecting the others would follow.  It was a small military shuttle about the size of a short bus, with an aisle down the middle and two columns of seats on either side of the aisle.

Once everyone was situated, Pharazon answered without showing sentiment, "Importance is relative, Lieutenant, and dependent on many factors including priority and immediacy.  What you'll be doing here," Pharazon now addressed all pilots, "is, in essence, weapons testing.  You may have heard the term 'cog' being used.  One could think of a 'cog' as the next generation of strike craft.  However, that is a very limited definition.  The capabilities of a cog have already been demonstrated to be much more than a strikecraft, more than a team of strikecraft can do.  Because cogs are still classified as strikecraft, the project is under Horizon Defense Fleet (HDF) jurisdiction, but in addition to being a space-based fighter, a cog is also quite capable as a surface-based mobile weapons platform, so if the project goes well, we may see cogs deployed in the Horizon Planetary Defense Forces (HPDF) as well in the foreseeable future.  The development of these may give us an edge in defending Horizon from the scattered remnants of violence left from the wars and the instabilities that still plague our borders.  I hope you can agree that this project has its due importance, Lieutenant."