The Nameless Luna novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: No Ticket
Her mother forgot her name and her ticket; she hands her father the Tennant keys at the gate, his Alpha command fails on her, and a stranger waiting at her plane offers her two jobs: pilot, and Luna.
The scanner at the gate flashed red when I tried to board.
The agent scanned my phone again.
Red again.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I don't have you on this flight."
Ahead of me, at the mouth of the jet bridge, my mother turned around.
She looked at me.
"Oh. You."
She moved her garment bag to her other arm.
"When I was booking the tickets, I couldn't remember your name. So I didn't buy you one. Just get yourself another ticket."
The line behind me went quiet.
I smiled and nodded, because that was what I did.
Six years ago my parents found their real daughter.
She'd been switched with me at a clinic in Fairbanks, the night we were both born.
She came home to Anchorage at eighteen with a DNA report and one duffel bag.
Her name was Annalise Tennant now.
It used to be mine.
Mom picked it before either of us was born, so Annalise says it was always hers.
When anyone says it to me, she cries until she can't breathe.
So nobody does.
Not my parents. Not the pack. Not the mechanics at the hangar I'd run since I was nineteen.
For six years I'd been "you" and "hey" and "the pilot."
Annalise stood behind Mom in a white wool coat, holding my father's arm.
"Mom, it's fine," she said. "She can fly down with the gown."
Dad turned around.
He was Alpha of the Anchorage pack, and he had the voice to prove it.
"Good. You'll take the Beaver down tomorrow. Annalise's gown, the gifts for the Crewes, the wine."
"And sit at the back table this time?" Annalise said. "Last year people got confused. They thought you were family."
A man behind me snorted.
Every pack in Alaska would be in Juneau this weekend for the Autumn Gathering.
In front of all of them, Annalise would be promised to Elden Crewe, heir to the High seat.
That promise used to be mine too.
I'd met Elden four times.
I looked down at the lanyard clipped to my belt.
Hangar keys. The Beaver's keys. The fuel shed. The office safe.
Six years of keys, and not one of them was mine.
I unclipped it.
"Excuse me," I said to the agent.
I walked past her to the jet bridge and held the keys out to my father.
He didn't take them.
So I opened his hand and put them in it.
"Get yourself another pilot."
Mom laughed, a short surprised sound.
Dad's face didn't move at all.
Then he dropped into the Alpha register, low and heavy, the one that made every wolf in Anchorage hold still.
"You'll fly it."
Two people in the line behind me were pack.
I saw their shoulders drop.
I waited for the pull.
I knew it well. A hook under the ribs. It had dragged me out of bed at four in the morning for six years.
It didn't come.
I could hear his voice fine.
I just didn't have to do anything about it.
Dad's mouth stayed open.
Mom's hand went to his sleeve.
"Have a good Gathering," I said.
I turned around and walked back up the concourse.
Behind me, Annalise started to cry.
Nobody followed me.
I took a cab to Lake Hood with my flight bag on my knees.
The Tennant Air hangar sat on the north shore, yellow and blue, our name in letters taller than me.
My spare key was still under the fire extinguisher.
I let myself into the office and took what was mine.
My headset. My current logbook. My good jacket off the hook.
My old logbooks filled the shelf above the desk.
Six of them, every hour I'd ever flown.
I'd come back for them.
I locked the door behind me and walked down to the dock to say goodbye to the Beaver.
A man was standing beside her.
He was big, in a brown canvas coat, with a short dark beard and his hands in his pockets.
I'd seen him at the gate. He was in the line behind me.
"You walked away from a command," he said.
"You saw that."
"The whole gate saw it. I'm the only one who knew what it meant."
He didn't step closer.
"Warrick Holloran. Coldfoot."
I knew the name.
Every pilot in Alaska knew it.
Last October the Coldfoot Alpha flew his Beaver into a ridge in the Brooks Range on a clear day.
"I'm sorry about your father," I said.
He waited for my name.
I didn't have one to give him.
He nodded slowly.
"Three pilots have quit on us since he died," he said. "The last one quit this morning, here, in Anchorage."
"Why?"
"Because of his last radio call."
He looked out at the water.
"He said, 'Yes, sir.' And then he turned into the mountain."
The wind pushed little waves against the floats.
"He was alone in that plane," Warrick said.
I felt the cold go down my back.
"Somebody ordered him to do it," I said.
"Somebody ordered him to do it." He looked at me again. "So I need a pilot nobody can order."
"Is that a job offer?"
"It's two."
He glanced up at the Tennant sign, then back at me.
"Coldfoot loses its seat tomorrow night unless I walk into that hall with a Luna," he said. "The second job is Luna."
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