Miranda Rees was a human, the chief engineer of the Coalition Hyperdrive Project.
She was on board the Quantum II Hyperdrive Lance of Truth when Quinn and Iacch hijacked it. She attempted to disable the hyperdrive so that the thieves would be arrested, but was shot by their stunner before she managed to.
The hijackers took her to the AutoDoc and tried to explain that Veeshka wished to annihilate the Puppeteers and kill Chmeee, but Quinn managed to persuade her by showing an infodisk with Veeska's orders to Shachra.
Following the directions of the Puppeteer Hindmost, they arrived to Ringworld looking for technology. When they arrived to the village of the Canyon People, Miranda used Altarian Ale to make the leader Rock That Safeguards His People sleep.
Much later, after Quinn and Seeker brought a stasis box from the Flesheater cave, Miranda opened it and found a device. After the visit to the Slaver Sunflower plateau, Miranda found out that the device is a Control Module which alters the neural waves of the sunflowers and control their laser beams; it used a variable width beam to distort neural wave patterns like a regulator, or disable them. In that box Miranda found a stasis control module. After Quinn's return from the Coastal Sea People, Miranda used it on the new box but it turned to be empty.
After Quinn and Seeker returned from the Map of Earth, the trio returned to the Canyon People and used the stasis control module on the Sky Silver. There they found a wounded Tnuctip survivor.