Cole offered his trademark cocky smile as he sat in the front row of the briefing room. He was wearing his flight suit and had a clipboard in one hand while he twirled a pen between his fingers with the other.

"I thought that's what Black Hydras did, Captain - risked our assets!" he called out with a slight smirk at his simple pun.

He knew it would probably get little more than a scowl from Tarix, but still he had to stave the tension off somehow. If this was big enough to risk half the military resources of the fleet, it was bigger than him, her, or the Hydras. For the Admiral to get on the comm like that, Cole recognized how life-or-death things had to be - there was just no way anyone was going to see him sweat.