Foreman Daskal

Daskal knows every shift whistle in her sector and the names of the people who answer them. Her superiors have offered offices with broader windows and grander titles, but each promotion would take her away from the post she has held through blockade, accident, and three changes of ownership. She has declined them all.

The Anvil Array guards the approaches to a cluster of foundries whose output the Combine cannot easily replace. Daskal keeps the route open because the workers behind her depend on it, and because she has seen what happens when distant executives mistake a delay for a minor inconvenience.

Her dark hair has gone silver at the temples, and her patience for unnecessary ceremony has thinned with it. She will listen to a captain with a real problem. Someone who arrives with empty threats will find her less interested in their rank than in how quickly she can get the line moving again.