Things fall apart

This is a thread about the leak that compromised most - if not all - active Quera agents (referenced first in the Unusual Tourists thread), and the ensuing crisis and events.

Quechkhonia, Harndon

Dafkane shouldered his way through the door set into the tree-archway that made up the doorway.
Inside, computers and voices hummed, faces twisted in desperation as loud as the panicked shouts.
His eyes met, and skittered off, the features of every person he saw. Why did he not recognise anyone? He hadn't been gone for that long, had he?

"Operative Dafkane."
He whirled around; he was met with a set of pale, sunken eyes. He forced himself to take a breath. "Operative Kaiiek."
They nodded, the livid scar that crept from the shadowed side of their face catching the bluish-white glow of the vines twisting above their heads.
"Where is Operative Ginak? The Königsstadt lead officer?" Dafkane only realised he had said - nearly shouted - what he had the moment the last syllable passed his lips.
Kaiiek blinked for a second, then shrugged. "I don't know. We haven't recieved any word."
"What do you mean you haven't recieved any word? Do you know how long it's been?" He should stop, he knew he should. And yet.
"Yes--" they looked aside.
Dafkane thought he might've caught the slightest of twitches around their eye socket.
"--We are... aware of how long it has been." They placed a hand on Dafkane's shoulder plate. Their fingers squeezed at it, then fell away.
'No. You're giving up on him. He can't not have made it. That's not what he's like.'

"I'm sorry." It was impossible to tell from Kaiiek's eyes whether they were or not - even to someone the likes of him, one kind of sadness looked a lot like another. "But we have bigger problems."
"The leak." He wished he could forget.
"The leak," they tilted their head an inch. "And the loss of the North American Republican squad."
For a second, he hadn't the breath to respond with. "All of them?" Ginak tried to count how many bodies that would have been, but stopped when his mind grew numb.
"... All of them. They all opted to stay given the circumstances."
"Of course." 'Bastards. Self-sacrificing, glorious bastards.'

"Have you been debriefed yet?"
"No," Ginak let out a breath. "We were on arse-covering. Serachicha Ocean."
A longer blink. "Yes. Well. Grab a tea and a sit, then you and the rest of your squad go to debrief."
Ginak gave a nod of the head, turned on his heel, and strode to the door.
After all, good Quera follow orders. Even the ones that get them killed.

---

[OOC: This is merely here for everyone elses' ease of roleplay. It is not sent outside of the Quera organisation.]
A note handed in person to every non-turncoat Quera post briefing/debriefing

Code:

Comrades,
We are in a dire situation indeed.
Total recall protocalls have been activated. All available deployed Quera have been ordered home. These will be swapped with those that were previously deployed domestically, which, in turn, will be given foreign assignments as a matter of haste.
Command, in deliberation with all Quera present at the time, has come to the decision to reactivate the Headhunter squads. A number of Quera have volunteered to be permenantly discharged from service to fulfil this role. Their sacrifice is to be commended, and we hold them in the highest regard for their actions, though we can never - as an organisation or as a state - publically as much as know of them. Officially, they are terrorists, independent of the Harndonian state, expatriots that have taken it upon themselves to do the unthinkable. Unofficially, purely in this statement, they are comrades of the highest order.
Their mission - iradicate the turncoats, and their collaborators in the Rossian command structures, at whatever the costs to themselves.
Glory or death!

Somewhere in Rossia

Dafkane took a breath. This was it, he supposed.
It had taken them over a month, but they were ready.
A breath of sea breeze brushed a strand of hair across his face.
He had his target, and so had the rest of them, the other Headhunters, spread who-knows-where across the entirety of Rossia.
All of them knew they were not there to give justice. They were there for revenge.

---

Quechkhonia, Harndon

"He's done what?"
The door between them and him did little to blunt the force or the volume of the echo.
Loni glanced up from the screen she was staring at. "Ginak?"
Feythr raised her eyebrows, and nodded.
"Told you he would be pissed." This from Kaiiek, propped against one of the curved trunks that acted as the ribcage of the facility.
"I don't remember any of us disagreeing with you," Loni said as she lowered her gaze back to her work.
"He's going to go after him, isn't he?"
"After Dafkane?" Feythr sighed. "Almost certainly."
That managed to gain a frown from Loni. "Isn't he a bit late for that."
"You think that's going to stop him?" Kaiiek meandered across the room to where mumbled curses were still filtering through the door.
Another sigh. "Not at all."

Quechkhonia, Harndon

"That's all of them," Loni said, staring into a blank patch of wall, the device in her hand lying forgotten on the top of her lap.
"Every single last one?" Feythr lowered the mug from her lips.
"More or less, yeah."
Feythr didn't know why her heart sank at that, least of all explain why she couldn't explain. She drained her cup.
"It's not really a thing to celebrate, is it?"
"No."

"Tea?" Loni was the one to finally break the silence.
"Fuck yes."
"Right," she grunted as she rose from her seat. She ambled over with all the grace of a cat just woken from its sleep. Her outstretched fingers plucked the beaker out of Feythr's grip. "Be right back."
Feythr could only nod at Loni's back, seconds after the operative had turned and walked away.

The wood made the faintest of taps against the ledge. Steam rose from the liquid held inside.
"Thanks," Feythr made herself say.
Loni sat down next to her, her cup a hand's breadth away from Feythr's.

"To fallen comrades." Loni had her mug in her hand, raised towards Feythr. The shine of her eyes belied the impassive face that held them.
"To fallen comrades," Feythr whispered, mirroring her friend's stance.
Ksandra, Thobarv, Nyquenoz. The Aspects knew how many more.
The two hollowed pieces of wood came together. And held, each owner staring at their respective cup, feeling the surge of memories and emotion.
Dafkane, Ginak, who was given the discharge he begged for. Ginak, who went after Dafkane.
The day before, news had come that he had caught up with him. Apparently the two died back to back, gunned down by the security forces that had them pinned.
Their two cups parted.
They drank.
On the other side of the world, the last survivors of the mission would be gathering. Soon - if it hadn't already happened - the final chapter of their vengeance would be written.