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Ladon Sidiim

Leader of the Federal Liberation Front

0 · 420 views · located in Fort Veritas

a character in “The Multiverse”, as played by barney_fife

Description

Profile pending.

So begins...

Ladon Sidiim's Story

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Character Portrait: Isaac Bowdoin Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim
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It was late evening slowly turning to dusk, while the headlights of a lone, nondescript sedan registered to a dead man out of Aslund was slowly driving through the streets. There were four of them, including Sidiim. He was clean shaven, a contrast from the other, mottled bunch that was riding in the car with him. Each one carried with them an Aldebaran SMG, a fast firing thirty round projectile submachinegun, a weapon that was plentiful among rebels, miscreants, and malcontents that dotted the galaxy, supplied dutifully by the Guatrau and his organization.

"This is it." Ladon said as they happened up to a small abandoned, partially bombed out apartment building. Some things it seemed never recovered from the numerous wars that plagued Terra and her people.

"Stop here."

With a shrill whine, the brakes of the car brought it to a stop, and Ladon slowly emerged from the back seat of the car.

"Wait here." He said, handing the driver a Detonator. "Two Millicentons, if I do not return." He said, passing the detonator off, and closing the door behind him with an audible thunk, while pulling an olive drab military style cap over his head. "These Gritidiim are the key to our plan, we must not fail." He said through the window, while resting his hand on his holstered Vega .42.

He approached the front door of the smashed building, and knocked twice loudly, and in a unique pattern identifying his arrival, before opening the door.

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Character Portrait: Isaac Bowdoin Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim
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#, as written by Ylanne
Isaac had been waiting for the past two hours. He knew the appointed time was near, but hadn't bothered to check his watch. Enough years in the field, he'd figured he knew about when the Aschen would show up. They knew him as Michael - an obvious alias, especially without a last name to go with it. But in this game, few who survived longer than about six months ever used their real names. As Michael, Isaac's beard was scraggly, speckled with grey, his hair natural and cut short. He was dressed in worn combat fatigues and a flak jacket, and surrounded by solid metal crates stacked against the walls of what used to be the common lobby for the building. Years ago, this place had been another relatively nice place to live in a solidly middle class neighborhood. But families with children hadn't lived in the building for most of the last decade, making it the perfect spot for activities best unnoticed by law enforcement.

Unfortunately for Ladon, the reason that "Michael" wasn't too concerned about law enforcement interfering with the exchange about to take place was because the apprehension team was already in place. They were hidden strategically upstairs and in the surrounding buildings, their heat signatures on infrared already pre-planned to emulate the appearance, movements, and locations of squatters, transients, and middlemen transporting highly illegal goods with this apartment complex as a staging ground. Isaac knew the people on that team. He couldn't communicate directly with any of them; it was too risky. But a dedicated satellite aimed at the complex was transmitting high-quality video feed to the operations center, and he knew they'd come when the time was right.

So when the knock came, and then the door opened, Isaac stood, briefly. He gave the pre-arranged code word, and then resumed his seat, but he did not relax. No one in this kind of situation ever did. "Didn't know if you were even real," he said, almost dismissively, never taking his eyes off the man.

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Character Portrait: Isaac Bowdoin Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim
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Ladon looked around, his eyes briefly scanning the interior of the building. He stepped inside, his eyes on "Michael." As he stepped into the room, the light that seeped through the pockmarked walls. The guy at the very least looked the part, and Ladon was for the most part desprate, while the Front's extensive informant network kept him appraised of the Empire, and TNG's doings, Imperial seizures at the border, along with joint operations with ALIRBAD made getting equipment difficult, and he was forced to turn to local crime syndicates, and ultimately Hataf.

Or so he thought.

"I figured you'd be taller." Ladon commented, his voice lilted by a strange accent, and hearing the man speak for the first time betrayed an unusual accent, He wasn't a native speaker of English, or Common, but he also wasn't a native speaker of Anquietas, the pronunciation was off.

"You have no idea the lengths I've had to go to make this happen, but there's a time for reckoning, your actions today will lead to the downfall of the Empire, and fracture the regime which has murdered my people for a millennia."

The door creaked shut behind him, and he held out his hand, dropping a heavy suitcase on the ground.

"Alloy grade Kanvium precursor, like we agreed." He said dropping the material on the floor, and kicking it forward. "You'll need two other components, but your group should be able to source them locally."

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Character Portrait: Isaac Bowdoin Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim
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#, as written by Ylanne
"Already got people working on it," Isaac said, nodding. He smiled a bit, wryly, like he imagined an older gangster might. "Being short's got its advantages. Harder to hit in a firefight." He reached to grab the proffered material, inspecting a sample of it without taking his eyes off Ladon. "Good. Should hold up against those damn air raiders, at least for a bit. Maybe we'll both live long enough to see these damned empires fall." Isaac's own voice sounded Aslundan, which was intentional. He'd grown up on the other side of Terra, but he'd been using the Aslundan accent for a while now, enough that it almost felt natural. "It's a good idea, too. Set them against each other. Glass this place again. If I don't live to see the TNG's end, guess I'll still have done my part for the cause. Took long enough." He set the Kanvium precursor aside and gestured at one of the metal crates. "We've got ten of these for you, if you've got more where they came from. Go ahead, take a look. You think it'll be enough?"

Each of the crates did in fact hold 200 pounds of high-grade military explosives - a new material called czytronite, designed to take down whole warships - tightly packed to minimize the likelihood of shaking and bumping that might cause a premature detonation. It'd taken Isaac and his boss weeks of arguing with the TAF top brass before they'd finally signed off on loaning the materials, on the condition that under no circumstances whatsoever were they actually supposed to end up with Ladon's splinter group. Even if the watching satellite overhead had to direct a drone to detonate them right here, right now, taking Isaac with them too. It was a risk Isaac had accepted.

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Character Portrait: Isaac Bowdoin Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim
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Ladon moved towards the crates, moving a hand to run along the metal finish of the crate, flipping the latches, and inspecting the contents. They appeared genuine.

"I only need enough to piss them off." Ladon remarked, shutting the crate. "Their own weapons, and anger will do the rest, as they set fire to this world." It was clear whatever motive this strange splinter faction was, it didn't bode well for Terra, a means to an end for Ladon.

"They will enrage the rest of the galaxy with their wanton destruction, and murder, and seal their own fate, liberating us all from their dominion."

Ladon huffed, and turned back towards Isaac. "Mich-hael." Ladon said, his raspy accent mulling the name.

"Consider our business concluded, I will retrieve my people, and we will go our separate ways, and the wrath of the gods will be felt far, and wide."

Slowly, he started towards the door, but he didn't take his eyes off of Isaac, slowly he approached, and reached out towards the door, the plan was going off without a hitch. But that was it, the plan was going too well, something was off, and slowly, Ladon's hand moved towards the holstered Vega pistol.

"And yet, this was too easy."

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Character Portrait: Isaac Bowdoin Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim
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#, as written by Ylanne
"Easy my ass. How are you carrying this shit out? I hope you brought help, because, well. That's a lot right there." Isaac spat something on the ground. He grabbed the suitcase that Ladon had brought, though, shaking his head with equal parts annoyance and contempt. "You don't want to do that. The council knows where I am. They hear I turned up dead, there won't be anywhere on this planet or in the entire goddamned sector you can hide. So I'm going to take this, and you're going to load up those crates there, and then we're never going to speak again. You got that, bud - "

Before Isaac could finish his sentence, the snipers (who had been watching with great care) on the roofs of the buildings next door took aim at each of the three people waiting in the car outside for Ladon - and at Ladon and Isaac too - and fired. The rounds were meant to incapacitate - a kind of tranquilizer designed to be powerful enough for use even against enhanced enemies - by pumping a nerve agent directly into the bloodstream, but not to kill.

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Character Portrait: Isaac Bowdoin Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim
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Ladon huffed. "I have no intention of killin-." He said, narrowing his eyes unable to finish his sentence until the sounds of something moving through the air caught his attention, and he felt something, hit him. He didn't have time to react before he felt his body give out from under him.

"You were followed!" He hissed before whatever chemicals they had used took effect, and he found himself on the ground, unable to move, with the last thing he heard before he slipped into unconsciousness was silence. They got his team too, they couldn't set the car bomb off, as he faded, anger surged through his mind until nothingness. Other than his weapon, the incoming team would find little else on his body, no documentation, no identifying tattoos, or even the barcode typical of Aschen military types.

The only thing on him was a faded photograph of a young woman, and small child.

But the game of cat and mouse had just begun, Ladom Sidiim was for all intents and purposes one of the most wanted men in the Empire, and considered by the party to be one of the most dangerous men alive. One slip up was all it took after spending most of his adult life either hiding, or running from the Imperial surveillance state.

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Character Portrait: Isaac Bowdoin Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim
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#, as written by Ylanne
Even though Isaac knew that this was part of the plan, his brain still registered only shock and fear at the moment the tranquilizing round made contact. His hands grasped at the air in a futile effort to remove it before its effects took hold and he fell, paralyzed and unconscious. This was definitely not one of the more glamorous undercover operations he'd taken part in.

The joint NPA and TAF team moved in quickly, the ground team already on the car by the time Ladon and Isaac's bodies had hit the ground. The agents pored methodically over the entire vehicle, leaving no compartment unseen, even as the detainees were bound and hooded for transport. "Five ready for transport," one of the agents radioed back.

"Acknowledged. Any ID?"

"Negative."

The team worked mostly in silence, cataloguing the materials in the truck and inside the abandoned apartment building, before tagging the items, too, for transport back to headquarters. Isaac, of course, had no way of knowing that several of the team members hadn't even been told that he was an undercover. Director Metternich had decided it was the strategically smarter choice, just in case any of the Molukai detainees started questioning the legitimacy of the supposed Hataf contact.

And so while most of the team worked to secure the scene, a secondary unit arrived to transport the five to Fort Veritas - all pre-arranged, of course, to prevent any inadvertent embarrassment to the government.

The setting changes from The Abandoned Slums to Fort Veritas

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Character Portrait: Isaac Bowdoin Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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Ladon slowly regained consciousness in what he figured was an interrogation room of some kind. Slowly his eyes struggled to focus in the unnaturally bright lights of the interrogation room.

He was seated and his hands were bound, he grimaced at the chains surrounding his hands, he briefly recalled seeing Isaac, the fool he thought, the hataf man let himself be followed, it was the only way that they had to have been exposed.

Ladon had faith in his other team mates, they would either try to escape or take their own lives at the earliest opportunity.

Ladon quietly wondered what lie on the road next, one thing was for sure, unlike most aschen that found themselves in Terran custody, this one was rather quiet. He didn't demand to see the Imperial consul, and he didn't prattle on about how they couldn't arrest him.

He didn't say a single word, opting simply to stare at the camera.

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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#, as written by Ylanne
About thirty minutes later, a small, wiry woman dressed in a bomber jacket, peasant skirt, and combat boots pushed open the door with her shoulder, holding two steaming cups of coffee in a cardboard holder in one hand, and an accordion file stuffed with paper in the other. Her lightning blue hair, tied back in a loose ponytail that spilled over her shoulders, was a stark contrast from her dark brown skin. "Well, you try telling the director you're busy; see how far that gets you exactly," she called over her shoulder to someone not visible from inside the room. The woman crossed the room quickly, and set the coffees and file down on the table, as the door shut behind her.

The room was plain and bare, holding only the table, three chairs, and a ring in the middle of the table for the handcuffs. There had been a filing cabinet in there before, but Ilyssa had personally dragged it out into the hallway, and left it there until someone from the army actually came to move it. You could still see the markings on the floor where it used to sit.

"Coffee!" she said. "One for you. One for me. Mind telling me your name? Makes it easier to know what to call you." She smiled a little. "I'm Elvira." (At least, that was her official alias. Everyone at the Bureau used one, even for routine paperwork. It was a leftover policy from the old woman's directorship.) "Or you can call me Dr. Kattari. Or Agent Kattari. That works too."

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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The man knew the game, he had heard the horror stories, stories from his countrymen when they were taken by the Imperial forces. He had heard all the stories, and when his hardened gaze set foot on the with woman in front of him he couldn't help but laugh briefly to himself.

"My name is Tom." He lied, he didn't want to reveal his true identity to them after all. He briefly looked down to the mottled sleeves of the camouflage jacket he was wearing. Immediately after his eyes turned up to the agent before him.

"Any competent interrogator would already have my information at their disposal." Ladon laughed, tugging at the handcuffs. There were faint scars across his knuckles, very similar to what Drulovic had. A calling card in particular.

It took a moment to remember the Terrans either didn't send his information to the central registry, or they didn't think he was Aschen at all.

He looked down at the coffee, and raised his eyebrow.

He was expecting the coffee to be poisoned, perhaps laced with some kind of narcotic or hallucinogenic. It's what she would do.

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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#, as written by Ylanne
"Sure, Tom, okay," Ilyssa said, her tone suggesting she did not for one second believe that that was actually his name. She grabbed one of the chairs and moved it so she was sitting almost next to him, rather than across from him. "Let's just go with that for now, and pretend you haven't used, oh, twelve different aliases over the last ten years or so. Because I'm guessing it's not Mollem or Jonas or Kal either. Yeah," she said, almost apologetically, "I checked." Ilyssa took a long drink from her coffee, still hot thankfully, and set it down. "Now," she said, dark brown eyes staring directly at Ladon's, "you want to tell me how and why you pissed off Marlene Angel?" She nodded at the scars on his knuckles. "Cause I bet that's one hell of a story."

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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He let out a sound that sounded like a cross between a sneak and a laugh, before he turned his eyes down to his hands. The mention of Marlene Angel got the most visible reaction out of him as he flexed his fingers.

"I was an inconvenience to her, just like I'm going to be an inconvenience to you, Gritiidim." He replied, his voice somewhat gravely, almost raspy.

"You don't operate like them, though. Things tend to be put in perspective when you spend time in a place like Whispering Mountain, you know where that is? Nothing you do can scare me." He looked down at the coffee once more and furrowed his brow, before he flexed his hands once more and stared down at the coffee.

"Those names, those are Langaran names, what makes you think I'm pegged for an Aschen? What possibly could have lead you to that conclusion, Elweerah" He said, once again his accent was strange, he did not speak like any Aschen the TIB would have encountered, he used words that were not In the Anquietas vocabulary, and struggled with certain vowels and consonants.

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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#, as written by Ylanne
"No, I really don't think you'll be much of an inconvenience here," Ilyssa said, shrugging. "The copier breaking down again, a five-car pileup on the main road, a flash flood, those are inconveniences." She caught him staring at the coffee. "It's not drugged, if that's what you're thinking." Ilyssa drank some from his cup too, without letting the actual cup touch her lips, then put it back in front of him. "See? Just normal coffee." She shook her head. "Look, I know you're not Aschen. My partner did time in Whispering Mountain. Told me all about it too. And you're right. We don't operate like that here. But we do have to wonder, why a guy from Molecay is meeting up with a guy from Hataf."

And Ilyssa was going to kill Tresiree Lillis after this. There was no way whatsoever she deserved to have the NPA's detainee dumped on her. But here she was. All because the Bureau kept the only file on the Molecay Federation.

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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Ladon slowly shook his head. "The answer is so close, yet so far. We both know how far and wide Hatafs resources spread. We live under the heel of the Empire, we live in constant fear of it's crushing blow. We barely struggle while Imperial soldiers massacre our families. Our world whithers under the blazing sun while our oceans boil away, and our forests are burned to cinders."

Ladon of course was referring to the Langaran glassing of Molecay during the Great War of Magellan.

"Your partner must have said something the party didn't like. They got off easy." Ladon remarked. "I attended a protest so they burned my house down and shot my family."

"They made me watch, as my wife Adina was lined up with my two children, and they were shot."

Ladon laughed to himself. "It was a protest asking for more quorum representation."

He looked to the coffee and slowly dipped his finger into the liquid, before bringing it up to his mouth to taste it, as far as his restraints would allow.

"If you know I am Molukai then the answer is obvious. This is a waste of both of our time and talents. But here's where things are going to get interesting.

His expression darkened.

"You're going to release me, otherwise I will tell you nothing." He said with a smirk.

"And we will both watch Langara burn."

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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#, as written by Ylanne
"I'm sorry for what they did to Adina and your children," Ilyssa said, and she meant it. She folded her hands over the accordion file, but didn't open it or take anything from inside it. Her eyes remained fixed on Ladon, unfazed. "But you're not alone in that. You don't have a monopoly on suffering. My partner lost her sister and parents, when the IIA decided they were a problem, too. I think she was lucky, to get out. She wishes she'd died instead of them. How's that for survivor's guilt?" Ilyssa's voice was wry and bitter. She shook her head, and then drank more of her coffee. She'd never even known what to do when Petra woke up sweating, screaming in the middle of the night, begging for Avra's life, which still happened more nights now than not. Ilyssa had her own ghosts. All she could do was hold Petra until the sobbing subsided, and they fell back into tortured sleep.

Ilyssa squared her shoulders, tilting her chin up slightly. "I've got to say, though, I've heard that line before. And firstly, I can't make the decision to release you. You know that. Besides, even if I did, we both know you definitely wouldn't tell me anything." She sighed. "But with or without your help, we'll find out more about that czytronite. Your Hataf friend might not spill. They're pretty hellbent on their own destruction, anyway. But you... You'd die for the Molecay cause, but what would you live for?"

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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Ladon shook his head slowly and frowned. "Why should I help you?" He asked frankly, he wondered a moment, the Molukai militiaman had nothing else to lose, with his movement in shambles, the Empire pressing its own advantage, he didn't have anywhere else to turn to.

"You'll release me because I can give you Kendra Shaw." He said flatly, his tactical hand played, the bait cast and now he would see if she would bite.

"I know where she is." He said flatly.

He flattened his hands on the table. "I live only to free my people, and would gladly die to advance the same cause."

His expression didn't betray any emotion, though the memory of his wife and children lined up against the wall flashed across his mind, he didn't react, rather he steeled his own gaze as he watched Ilyssa to gauge her reaction.

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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#, as written by Ylanne
Ilyssa only shrugged. "We all know where Kendra Shaw is." She didn't, actually, but she had a hunch that Director Wiryaman did, or at the very least, the old woman did. Not that any of them were still talking to her, at least officially, while she was rotting away in some prison cell. Ilyssa, like everyone else, had watched all of the trials with rapt attention. And Shaw had come up, repeatedly. It was because of that damn mess with Shaw that Khayyam had ordered the wheels of justice turn against the old woman. No matter what any of them said about corruption. "And plenty of us would love to see her head on a pike, trying as it may be to convince Niihama of that. But her head isn't here," Ilyssa said, pointedly. "Yours is. And while Terra yearns for Shaw's blood as payment for the glassing, we're more concerned with where that czytronite was headed. And how exactly you meant to take down the Aschen with it. Because, make no mistake, while the Aschen have never been our friends, we don't take too kindly to sudden, explosive conflicts erupting on Terran soil either. Things tend to get messy."

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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Ladon shrugged. "You misunderstand, I can deliver her to you." He said, emphasizing on the word deliver.

Ladon leaned back as far as his restraints would allow, the coffee in front of him continued to cool. "Who said any explosive conflicts were to be on Terran soil, maybe these explosives we're going to be shipped to Molecay, where they would be put to good use, or maybe they would be sent somewhere to punish the Aschen for their deeds.

"I have it on good authority that Kendra Shaw is going to pass through Terran jurisdiction on her way off world, something to do with the internal machinations within her government, she's vulnerable." Ladon offered a smile.

"A head for a head, I merely tried to procure explosives to use against a... Mutual enemy." Ladons tone almost turned mocking.

"I didn't glass half your planet."

Ladon simply chuckled. "Where I intended to take the explosives, is not your concern, besides what could possibly motivate me to tell you anything? For all I know the Cabal is waiting outside that door." Ladon spat.

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Character Portrait: Ladon Sidiim Character Portrait: Ilyssa Jo Horntvedt-Siegel
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#, as written by Ylanne
"I've no more desire than you to involve the Inquisitorial Cabal here," Ilyssa said, appropriately indignant. She didn't even have to summon affected rage. It was visceral, and real. "To even suggest that we would collaborate is an insult. You know yourself what Langara did to our people. We've fought and resisted Aschen occupation twice in the span of less than one century, even after the Aschen enslaved, imprisoned, and tortured countless civilians, including some of my own friends." And her own agency's beloved director, too, apparently subject to humiliating public execution in what the Bureau learned only later was merely a propagandistic stunt meant to demoralize resistance efforts. One that had worked to horrifying effect. Ilyssa took a breath, the anger flashing in her eyes passing a moment later. "So yes, it is my concern when a Molecay dissident is exchanging weapons and arms with a Hataf insurgent on Terran soil. Your people are not the only ones who've suffered Aschen ire."