Odalys Kranz
Captain Odalys Kranz is a gemsbok and the chief pilot on TransZoo's Canter and northern routes in We Can Fix Pawbert, introduced in the W-Series. When a cargo fire takes both pilots of TransZoo 106 out of their seats over open ocean, she is the voice on the company frequency that talks Luther through the rest of the flight, from the first smoke on the flight deck to the water in Sandy Cove.
Background
Kranz flies the Airbison A320 and has flown the particular airframe that becomes TransZoo 106. As chief pilot she signed the release on the charter that carried Perkins and Botasky home from Vladifrostok without ever laying eyes on the aircraft, and that signature is what puts her in front of a company hearing afterward. She is in her car in the parking structure at the TransZoo operations center when her phone rings, and she has had only a glance at the paperwork before she is on a headset talking to the flight deck. Her uniform carries four bars.
Series History
W-Series
In "Souls on Board" she comes up on the second radio box once Ines has the aircraft on a discrete frequency, and lays down the one rule she will hold him to for the rest of the flight: when something quits, Luther tells her what it was and she tells him what he has lost, and he keeps flying rather than chase the fault. She makes him say it back. She talks him through the autopilot disconnect and the dead trim, rules that he and Neagley will swap the stick every few minutes rather than be heroes about it, and warns him about the recorded voice that will start shouting below a couple of thousand feet. She takes the loss of the green hydraulic system to mean the flaps are gone, and refuses to let anyone extend the landing gear until the two of them have decided together where the airplane will stop. She has him depressurize and open the direct vision window at four thousand feet to get the smoke off the panel, and backs Ines's decision to bring him over two weather walls. When the elevator burns through she closes her eyes for two seconds and then teaches him to fly on thrust alone, in long slow waves, and to put the airplane down at the bottom of one. With Dixon calling the bottom of each wave she does the arithmetic first, tells him he will not make the field, and asks Ines what he has instead; when the answer is Sandy Cove she names it his runway, spells out what putting an airliner on water will take so that nobody up front is guessing, and has the ditching switch set before the turn. She keeps talking through the last wall and the last five hundred feet, tells him to let the water come, and calls idle and brace. Six days later she meets him in a TransZoo operations building with a folder she never opens. She has listened to the recording twice, the first time for the board and the second for herself, and she has a hearing of her own the next month about whether the operator did everything it should have. She tells him he will be offered a story about himself in which he did something remarkable, and that he should keep the other one instead, in which he followed instructions in the order and at the pace they were given and attempted nothing clever. The conversation ends with a coffee and the Canter rotation, and she does not raise it again.
Key Relationships
Luther Pawthorne
For the whole of the flight she knows him only as Rook, the name he gives on the frequency. Her voice on the box stays warm and unhurried, rising only at the two walls and at the water, and the one thing she asks of him is that he report what has quit and keep flying. Afterward she is the mammal who gives him the version of the story he is meant to keep, and she tells him plainly that she will be no use to him for a while, because her own hearing comes first.
Ines Baruk
The two of them split the problem without ever discussing it: Ines owns the airspace and the radar, Kranz owns the airplane. When the field is out of reach Kranz asks Ines what he has, questions her on the cove's length, depth and water temperature, and tells her to turn him.
Key Quotes
| Quote | Context |
|---|---|
| "When something stops working I want you to tell me what it was, and I will tell you what you've lost. Do not troubleshoot. Do not investigate. Fly the airplane." | Setting the terms of the flight after smoke comes through the flight deck floor ("Souls on Board") |
| "Rook, that's your runway." | Naming Sandy Cove once the field is out of reach ("Souls on Board") |
| "Keep that one. It's the only version that will still be true in a year." | To Luther, six days after the water ("Souls on Board") |