Max (Maximum Ride 5)

"This sucks, about your mom," he said, his voice so low only I could hear it. I nodded, feeling the strength in his hand, the muscles and tendons, the bones, the calluses and scars. "And Nudge," he went on. I nodded again, mutely remembering that night out in the desert with Fang and then coming home to find disaster and chaos. And the next morning, Nudge leaving the flock. Suddenly my throat felt tight, and

my eyelids were heavy. I closed them.

"I'm here." His voice was so soft, I wasn't even sure I'd heard it. But I had.

And there, with nine words, Fang had summed up everything I was thinking, everything I was feeling, everything in my past and my future.

He's your soulmate.

My eyes shot open. Voice? Are you back?

31

WE THINK IT will take at least seven days, possibly more." The woman in the tailored khaki uniform looked at us impassively.

"No," I said, crossing my arms over my chest, just as Brigid said, "We don't have that much time."

"Then they can't come," said the woman in khaki.

Okay, first impressions of Hawaii? We'd arrived at sunset, and it had looked like a movie set, with fake molded plastic islands set into impossibly beautiful blue water. It reminded me of Fang's desire for us to find a deserted island somewhere and just live, peacefully, by ourselves. No world-saving. No 'bot-fighting. Just us, the sand, and the sea.

Our jet had landed at the naval base at Pearl Harbor, and we were immediately greeted by soft, gentle breezes, unusual floral scents, palm trees with actual coconuts on them, and this pit bull of a woman who was about to make me go seriously ballistic.

John and Brigid looked at me.

"I'm going, no matter what they say," I said in the steely voice I usually reserved for extreme circumstances, like when Gazzy had left crayons in his pocket during a rare instance of my running laundry through a dryer. We'd looked like flower children for months.

But the khaki woman wasn't in the armed forces for nothing. She met my eyes, and I had to admit, we were almost evenly matched in the freeze-out glare category. Now if I could just run her down with a tank, my day would perk right up.

"You cannot board a vessel of the United States Navy unless you satisfactorily pass a BSSTC, a basic survival skills training course," Lieutenant Khaki almost snarled. "This course normally takes three weeks. Under these extraordinary circumstances, we can compact it into one week. In the extremely unlikely event that you last a week, you may then board a United States Naval vessel in an attempt to ascertain Dr. Martinez's whereabouts, and, if possible, execute a rescue mission, under the supervision, direction, and authority of the United States Navy."

"You sure do like saying 'United States Navy,' " said Gazzy cheerfully.

Her gray eyes flared as she looked down at him.

"Lieutenant, I'm sure you can appreciate the very dire need we have to begin the search as quickly as possible," John said firmly. "Admiral Bellows assured us that we would have every resource necessary."

"And so you shall," said Lieutenant Khaki, turning to him. "As soon as you pass a BS—"

"Yeah, we got the BS part," I interrupted. "But look, we have all the survival skills we need—and then some. You guys just don't have that much to teach us."

For a moment Lieutenant Khaki looked like she was about to laugh in amazement. Instead, she just snorted and motioned to a khaki-clad underling. "Ensign, please show our visitors—and their dogs—to their quarters."

"Yes, ma'am," said the young ensign, touching his cap.

As Total huffed indignantly, I whirled to stare at John. He looked upset and also tired and frustrated. I remembered that he cared about my mom too. He waved us closer.

"Guys," he said, "I'll make some phone calls, see what I can do. In the meantime, just do what they say. If they do agree to help us, it could mean the difference between life and death."

My mom's life or death.

"We need their resources," John went on. "And frankly, I don't know that we have any contacts with enough leverage to make the navy forgo their standard operating procedure. But, like I said, let me make some calls."

Reason and emotion battled inside my head. Where was my Voice when I actually needed it? I thought it had popped up earlier, but I wasn't sure if that had really been my Voice returning, or if Angel had been putting thoughts into my head. Or was it my own wishful thinking, blurting out something in the (somewhat relative, in my case) privacy of my mind?

At any rate, no Voice stepped up now to help me make a decision.

I hated this. Hated it. I'd always gotten us out of scrapes on my own. I'd never once had to agree to let some official person help us. But this was different. I knew I couldn't find my mom by myself or with just the flock. The Pacific Ocean is too big, too deep.