Ten - Four. Never Nine - Five.

The radio crackled, before the voice came along. Brad winced in his sleep, as he lifted a lazy eyelid to check the time. The digital clock blinked 3.43am.

"Base to Lover. Base to Lover.", Leonard's voice boomed through the night eradicating options of any further sleep. Leonard was the ranking officer in charge that night, and he wouldn't call if the situation didn't really demand it. If he answered the call, he knew he probably wouldn't be goin' to bed anytime soon.

"Yeah. Lover to Base. This better be important, Leonard.", Brad said as he started to get up from bed.

He kept the radio by the sink, as he splashed water onto his face.

"We have a situation, Brad." When was there never a situation, Brad thought to himself. He resigned to the fact that he would be sitting in front of his much hated computer real soon. "Brad, you there?"

"Yeah. What seems to be the problem?", Brad dabbed a bit of the cologne around his temples, as he put on his dark blue cardigan.

"There seems to be a problem with the communication radios. I have lost contact with all my men." Aaah, drats. "Al's waiting outside your front door, the engine's running."

To a quiet neighbor, it would have looked fishy, but the Lincoln Signature series didn't make any noise at all. You wouldn't know whether you were driving or parked. It was that quiet.

"How's it goin', Al?", Brad hopped into the front seat, as he always did. Getting into the back-seat was not his style of getting chauffered around. Al gave his customary nod, as he always did.

Al pulled the Lincoln into the reserved parking lot, as Brad ran into the base station. The catastrophe seemed evident as he walked into the room. Not many lights were blinking on the blue screen.

"They have just disappeared. Poof!", Leonard was right behind him. It's been like that for the last one hour. "Any luck, Matt?"

"Dispatch to One-Forty-Six. 146, Do you copy?", Matt hurled the communication piece towards the trash can.

"I take that as a 'no'", Brad rolled his eyes, moving forward to sit in front of the associated computer.

"AVA must have shut down or something", Brad thought aloud, as he typed in his password to log into the communication server. "I am goin' in, fellas"

You think, the satellites must have moved out of their orbits?", Brad hated it when he heard such illogical comments, but that possibility would have been his last guess. The satellites could have a mind of their own, and move out of their orbits, he smiled in his head. If that happened, they might as well shutdown everything and go back to sleep.

AVA greeted him with her usual, 'Hello Lover!' That was something he had programmed her to greet him with. His thoughts rolled back the day when the guys at the base station asked him to pick up a nickname for himself. He was clued in to pick up something nasty, something when said makes the hair stand. He remembered his colleagues picking up 'Vulture', the cliched 'Killer', 'C6' etc. He still thought he had come up with the scariest name ever, 'Lover'. Think about it, what's not scary about love, he remembered telling the others.

He smiled at AVA's terminal administration services, the GPS server was up and running. So, that's one possibility down. He would positively hate to wake up TinTin if the problem was with main server. Brad didn't touch that one.

"Somebody call the Wireless carriers, see if there is a problem with their links!"

"On it, Sire!", somebody barked in the background, just as more lights began to disappear from the screens.

"We might have a serious situation over here, Sir. We have lost communications with all our ships. We will have to face hell morrow.", Leonard chipped his unwanted panicky 2 cents in.

"Shut the fuck up, Leo", Matt voiced Brad's thoughts.

""Chill fellas, I think, I see what the glitch is.", Brad had logged into the main server, checking the plug points of all the supporting servers. AVA seemed to be misconnected. "AVA should respond suitably now.", He hoped, as he stared at the screen.

Nothing happened.

"Oh bummer!", Brad yelled as he logged back into AVA, the actual GPS Server got auto-disconnected the moment the main server was reconfigured. TinTin had put that feature in. He punched in the satellite password, just as TinTin walked in, still in his boxers and T-shirt.

"Dispatch to Two-Ten.", Matt yelled,"What's your Twenty, Sir?" Matt was asking for 210's GPS co-ordinates. "210 to Dispatch. I copy you, Base."

Matt replied, "10-4", acknowledging 210's position.

"Oh Great. Fuckers!", TinTin exclaimed as the lights started to reappear on the screen and heard 210's crisp reply.

Leonard looked guilty, "I am sorry, I just thought maybe we could need an extra hand. So, I woke up TinTin."

"Denny's anybody for coffee.", TinTin looked around, still rubbing his eyes, "Thanks so fuck, Leo."

Al got ready to drive the guys to Denny's, just as Huckle walked in, "What seems to be the problem, fellas?"

Everybody laughed out aloud, as Huckle flicked his middle finger to Leonard. Leonard just shrugged a 'sorry-need-extra-hand' his way.

"Thanks for everything, guys!", Leonard mumbled sheepishly as everybody got back to their stations, just as somebody chimed in from the corridor, "Leo, The President's here for some reason."