Alicia Monroe runs the Moonbase out of the south-crater facility, a research post that was already old before the emergence. She got the Administrator's job the ordinary way. She was the person in the room nobody could talk over. On a base full of engineers, that meant she ran the meetings, and then, by accident, the facility.
She is married, down on Earth, to a woman she has not seen in eleven months. They trade long voicemails on a private relay. She has two godchildren under ten who think she is an astronaut. That is partly true.
When the Ship tore itself out of the regolith and took the north wall with it, Monroe did what she does. She counted her people and she opened the channel. She watched the rescue rocket she had authorized die to a thermal vent, on the telemetry, as it happened, and she stayed intelligible on the comm because someone had to hold the microphone. She has not slept well since. She does not mention it.