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King had paid very little attention to the Invictoid Authority's wheeling and plaintive refrain regarding the stabilization of Zanovia, instead having fallen-in with the rest of the Envenomed and taken the time to give what remained present of the group a good look. The interstellar political jockeying and the attendant excuses and justifications that came with it were scarcely different for the Intransigence than it was for the UCL, it seemed. The only meaningful difference as far as King could discern, was one of scale. The Intransigence was the equivalent of a screaming and flailing infant flinging its own waste against the walls to see what would stick (an observation King had made aloud in the past and was likely to make aloud again in the future - if not right that moment), and all the frontier skirmishing and power consolidation was doubtlessly the result of a need for internal stabilization as anything else. The General butting heads with the Invictoid more or less confirmed that - the Intransigence was suffering from growing pains.

The concern being broadcasted by the other members of the little band King had been foisted upon was a mite annoying however. King found it somewhat bizarre that any of the others should so openly care, or pretend to care. On one hand, it was nice to know some of them might have the requisite critical thinking skills needed to not throw a celebration in order to eat whatever line of bullshit their erstwhile masters might feed them - but on the other, did it even really matter?

They were all just cogs in a vast interstellar machine. They just had to do the work, and look out for their own interests in the time being. The nuanced intricacies of all the petty betrayal and optics was not something they had a hand in. The illusion of meaningful significance being force-fed to them was getting a bit too on the nose though - time to readjust everybody's expectations.

[color=5FADAD]"So if I am assessing these briefings correctly, the 'perceived strategic performance' of this little band of yours has granted them the privilege of being the sacrificial bullet catchers? You do realize my skills do not entail retrieval and exfiltration of corpses, right?"[/color] King's overall tone was one of openly contemptuous mockery. As he spoke, he casually folded his hands back over his head as he leaned back against nothing in particular in the air, his projected body seeming to take on a paradoxical angle of balance.

[color=5FADAD]"I suppose you offering to send me to [i]another[/i] space station is your subtle way of letting us all know that you intend to fire us at the problem and forget it until either it or us are gone? At least give us the details on the [i]actual[/i] teams you are sending to do the real work while we dance a distracting hanged-man's jig for the enemy. It wouldn't do for our dicking around to inadvertently inconvenience them somehow."[/color]

From the perspective of the others, the only thing that might have stood out more than King's brazen flippancy and disrespect for the Invictoid and them was the [i]rapidity[/i] of the conclusions he had drawn. The Invictoid had scarcely drawn up the dossiers for them to review, and yet King was already speaking as though he was familiar with their contents. Perhaps he had been briefed in advance? Or perhaps he really was truly some kind of artificial intelligence, although no [i]designed[/i] intelligence was so likely to be as openly disrespectful as King dared to be.