Literature / First Flight Trilogy

The First Flight Trilogy, also sometimes referred to as the Sundowner trilogy, is a series of novels written by Chris Claremont.

The series is a science fiction story set in the not-too-distant future. The first book, First Flight was published in 1987, followed by Grounded! in 1991, and Sundowner in 1994.

Nicole Shea, on her first mission into space, finds herself fighting a group of rogue space pirates, known as a Wolfpack, who leave her ship the Wanderer, crippled and adrift, with little chance of rescue. By chance, they're saved during a first-contact with a race of cat-like aliens, the Halyan't'a. After a pitched battle with the wolfpack, Nicole, badly injured, spends some time in recovery.

In the second book, Nicole is removed from flight duty, as the powers-that-be have decided that after her ordeal during her first space mission, she is not ready to go back into space. She is transferred to Edwards Air Force Base, as Earth, reeling from the revelation of no longer being alone in the universe, is undergoing drastic political and economic changes. The base commander tells her that even if she hadn't been grounded, he'd have moved heaven and earth to have her in his command, because three representatives of the Halyan't'a are being assigned to their base to work on a technological meeting of the minds together, and her experiences in space, and her ability to speak the language of the newcomers make her the perfect liason. Nicole finds herself at the center of various intrigues involving the arrival of the new aliens and the wealthy and powerful Cobri family on Earth.

In the third book, Sundowner, set five years after the end of the previous book, Nicole has reached the rank of Captain, and the work to create a hybrid craft using human and Halyan't'a technology has proven successful. But not everyone views the alliance between the two species favorably. And after an attempt is made to destroy the new hybrid craft, officially dubbed Swiftstar, but which Nicole has come to think of as Sundowner, the powers-that-be decide that the safest thing for her is to get her off-world. And along for the ride is Amy Cobri, who has come to see Nicole as the key to succeeding in her Lamplighter program, a powerful system designed to give a human mind direct control of a starship without the need for physical controls. And when strange things begin to happen to Nicole, she is forced to seek answers on the Halyan't'a homeworld, s'N'dare.

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This work contains examples of:

First Flight

• A-Cup Angst: While changing into a space suit, Nicole takes a moment to note her lack of breasts in a mirror, with, as the book puts it, "mock dismay".
• Ace Pilot: Nicole, demonstrated in the Unwinnable Training Simulation, when she pushes her craft hard enough that she nearly beats the computer, which was programmed to cause a crash at all costs.
• Action Girl: Nicole Shea, the lead character for the novels, is a scrapper who can hold her own in a fight, and is no slouch as a pilot, either.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • Nicole is caught by Hana admiring her a little too long at their first meeting, though Hana is not offended. Nicole also has had male lovers in the past, and others afterwards.
  • Hana, who is in a physical relationship with Paulo, tells Nicole that when she went into space her partner didn't take it well and they had a very loud, heated breakup that got the police called. Hana says she and "Beth" are on speaking terms these days.
• Artificial Gravity: Achieved aboard the Wanderer by rotating the habitat ring, though it does mean that objects and liquids fall at an angle instead of straight down. The Halyan't'a ship has a more standard example.
• Asteroid Miners: And as Ben Ciari points out, they're not wayward hicks, but polymaths with a lot of time to read and study, and with no room for errors. The murder of one such family of miners is used to set a trap for the Wanderer.
• Big "NO!": Hana, upon realizing that Paulo and the others were going to sacrifice themselves to save the Wanderer.
• Boring, but Practical: Nicole's First Flight is to pilot a craft to set a series of marker buoys through the Solar System from the Earth to Pluto, necessary for ships with the new Baumier Drives to effectively navigate through the solar system.
• But Not Too Foreign: Hanako Murai's grandfather was of Swedish stock from Minnesota, leaving her with distinctly Japanese features from her grandmother, but noticeable blue eyes from her grandfather's side of the family.
• Casual Interstellar Travel: Baumier Drives are actually very easy to make and efficient. However, Casual Interplanetary Travel is not currently in effect. Making that possible is the very purpose of the Wanderer mission. As Dr. David Elias notes with dismay, at their current level, ships come in two flavors, Ferraris and Volkswagens.
• Catchphrase: "Terriffic" (accent Nicole's), whenever Nicole is irritated.
• Cat Folk: The Halyan't'a are sapient felinoids.
• Chekhov's Gun: Before her Heroic Sacrifice, Cat Garcia notes that the use of the anti-matter warhead was a tactic used by Morgan in the past. This is an early clue that the leader of the wolfpacks is none other than Morgan himself.
• Combat Pragmatist: The security officer, Ben Ciari, advises Nicole that if they're fighting person to person outside of the ship, to simply pull off someone's helmet, as it was designed for easy removal and will end the fight immediately.
• The Determinator:
  • General Judith Canfield was horribly mangled in an accident and had to be rebuilt, with at least one character claiming she was "50% plasteel" afterwards. The military wanted to retire her after that. She fought it tooth and nail and took it to the Supreme Court, eventually winning reinstatement. Nicole's father is the one who wrote the briefs that won the case.
  • Nicole is given a chance to return to Earth after the training scenario with no black marks on her record and the knowledge that she'd never be eligible for the space program again. She flat out refuses.
• Evil Is Petty: Morgan deliberately lures Wanderer into e trap because he and Cat Garcia were lovers before he was bounced from the service on a psyche discharge, and she refused to go with him. It's also implied strongly that he also wanted to kill Nicole as she was Canfield's apparent protege.
• Face–Heel Turn: Morgan was once a hero who saved nearly 100 people in a cramped shuttle and successfully got them alive to Earth, earning a Congressional Medal of Honor, and a psychiatric discharge from the service. He didn't take the discharge well, and joined a corporately backed group of wolfhounds to get back at the people he held responsible, including the murder of three of the seven people who had signed off on the discharge.
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: Thanks to Baumier Drives.
• Fiery Redhead: Nicole is a redhead, and she absolutely has a temper. She starts giving as good as she gets during Ciari's combat training.
• Genius Bruiser: Marshall Ben Ciari can kick butt in multiple ways. He also has numerous doctorates and is well-read in other fields where he doesn't hold degrees. He cautions Nicole that this is typical of most spacers, as it costs too much money and the risks are too high to send any old idiot into space. Only the best and brightest. That includes the criminal element he typically has to deal with as well.
• Ghost Ship: The Rockhound is discovered tumbling end over end in space, crumbled and falling apart. It belongs to the Wolfe Clan, friends of Major Garcia. The head of the clan is found dead aboard, and the flight recorders are wasted. See Spotting the Thread.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Ciari, after being exposed to the "Speaker" virus, is half-human/half-Halyan't'a. The process is reversed later on, but it does leave some lasting effects on Ciari's body.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Cat Garcia, Paulo, and Dr. Shomron sacrifice themselves to save the Wanderer, intercepting an anti-matter warhead with their own ancillary craft.
• Hyperspeed Escape: Nicole suggests that they escape the wolfpack by engaging the Halyan't'a equivalent of the Baumier Drive for a few seconds, targeting Pluto, where there is a base. She does not want it to be a Blind Jump, though they admittedly aren't sure if their calculations will be accurate.
• Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand: Shavrin, the leader of the Halyan't'a envoy, is deeply ashamed that she had to use the "Speaker" virus on Ciari. Recognizing Ciari and Nicole as mates, she offers Nicole her life. Nicole instead embraces her and offers Forgiveness.
• Multinational Team: Also a case of Fair for Its Day, in 1987 Claremont had the heroes composed of an Action Girl lead, a gay Russian cosmonaut, an Israeli doctor, a Japanese scientist, a Brazilian navigator, and a Hispanic woman as the command officer.
• My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: Nicole and Ciari share some sack time on the eve before launch. Mission Control is well aware due to biotelemetry readings being kept on the crew constantly. Ciari is well aware and fairly prosaic about it. Nicole, on the other hand, wants to die of embarrassment.
• No Kill like Overkill: Realizing that the crew of the Wanderer is aware that they are not the Wolfe family, and that they murdered same to jump their claim, the Wolfpack attacks the Wanderer with an anti-matter warhead, which will consume all matter it comes in contact with. They aim it at the asteroid where the Wolfe clan made their home base, knowing the resulting explosion would destroy the Wanderer as well. Only a Heroic Sacrifice by Cat, Paulo, and Chagay, steering their smaller craft into the path of the warhead, saved them, and even then only just.
• Preserve Your Gays: Andrei lives to the end of the first book.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Halyan't'a are clearly spoiling for a fight when the raiders of the wolfpack try to board the ship.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Nicole is about to give up, Ciari makes sure to give her a hell of a speech to shake her out of her funk.
  Ciari: You're alive, bitch. It's Cat and Paolo and Chagay and the entire Wolfe Clan who were atomized. Cut the cards any way you like, you've had a month's more time than they'll ever have; you have chances they never will. They bought you, and me and Hana and Andrei, that time — With their lives, Lieutenant, and have the gall to feel sorry for yourself because of it? Because the strain of living is more than you can handle?
  Nicole: You don't pull any punches, do you?
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Judith Canfield disregards the recommendation of the Board after Nichole's performance during the Unwinnable Training Simulation, because despite everything thrown at her, she came as close as humanly possible to beating the system anyway.
  • Shavin, the leader of the Halyan't'a peace envoy, who welcomes the castaways from the Wanderer aboard her ship.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Under the effects of the "Speaker" virus, Ciari wants to go gunning for Morgan personally.
• Sex for Solace / Zero-G Spot: Ciari and Nicole, after the Wanderer is left adrift.
• Shout-Out:
  • Nicole at one point refers to space as "The Final Frontier". Additionally, the ship ferrying Ciari to Halyan't'a space at the end is the StarShip Enterprise.
  • Nicole is a fan of rock star Lila Cheney. Also self-referential, considering who wrote it.
• Shown Their Work: Claremont did a good deal of research for the work and it shows. He largely averts Writers Have No Sense of Scale, as well as emphasizing just how serious, dangerous, and costly, everything is in space. The narrative mentions, on several occasions, that the criteria for personnel working in space requires fitness, brains, and strict adherence to safety, because any error could prove fatal. In addition, the necessary technology, techniques, and the how-tos and whys of space are discussed.
• Space Is Cold: Absolute Zero. And after the Wanderer is crippled by the wolfpack, they're steadily losing heat. Thankfully, Hana manages to salvage power.
• Space Pirates: The Wolfpack have been hijacking asteroid mining operations, murdering the miners, and taking their cargo, and they attack the Wanderer as well, leaving her crippled.
• Space Police: The Marshals, of which Ben Ciari is one.
• Spotting the Thread: Nicole realizes the flight recorder they found for the Rockhound does not match the specifications for the one that the Wolfe Clan recently ordered. In fact, Wolfe had recently ordered a good deal of high end, albeit used NASA equipment, and it informs the crew that the clan must've struck a major ore deposit. The also realize that this means the destroyed Rockhound likely didn't suffer an accident and was, instead, ambushed by a claim-jumping Wolfpack.
• This Is Reality: Ciari points out to Nicole that the inhabitants of the mining colonies aren't blue collar hicks. In space, there's no room for error. Most of them are advanced polymaths with a lot of time in space to read and study.
• Time Skip: Nicole was gravely injured after confronting the Wolfpack, and the finale skips ahead several months to her coming out of recovery fully healed.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: The story is set "barely three generations after Armstrong set foot at Tranquility Base". The Earth is not unified, at least not at the start of the first book. And faster than light travel has been developed.
• Unwinnable Training Simulation: The novel opens with Nicole being subjected to a training scenario designed to crash her ship. She nearly breaks the simulator preventing a catastrophic disaster, but had nearly flunked out due to a mistake caused by complacency.

Grounded!

• Ace Pilot: Still Nicole, who reminds us of her skills early on by recovering her plane after a remote drone causes her plane, a Beechcraft Baron Model B, to stall out in the jet wash. Her plane takes some damage in a rough landing, but is repairable and she's in one piece, though a bit bloodied.
• Adult Adoptee: Shavin effectively adopted Nicole into her house, making her an honorary Halyan't'a, presenting her a necklace with an inscription declaring her to be a member of their kin. Nicole points out to Manuel Cobri that Halyan't'a take family very seriously and wouldn't care about legalities or social niceties should anything happen to her.
• Alpha Bitch: Lt. Col. Grace Kinsella, who is resentful that a 2nd Lieutenant like Nicole is considered a hero while she hasn't made it to space yet. Amelia calls her a bully in her introductory scene.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Using Alex's software, Amy turned Nicole's quarters into a VR program designed to brainwash her into shooting the president. Fortunately, Nicole managed to avoid that. Unfortunately, the Halyan't'a Speaker, Matai, was not so lucky, and died in the attempt.
• Bookends: The story begins with an official evaluation, relieving Nicole of her astronaut status due to a medical review. It concludes with another official notice, restoring her to active flight duty.
• Cute but Troubled: Alex Cobri is attractive, but he's The Unfavorite and well aware of it. And to that end he prefers Virtual Reality to the real thing.
• Designer Babies: Amelia Cobri is, for all intents and purposes, an Opposite-Sex Clone of her father, Manuel Cobri. And to his alarm, he finds that he cannot control or rein in her impulsive behaviors. His son, Alex, was an earlier attempt, but deemed a failure. "Too much of his mother in , simply by him."
• Enfant Terrible: Amy is barely in her adolescent years. The Wolfpack she'd organized to control the Asteroid Mines and kill the miners for their profits has been in swing for five years. Meaning Amy was in her single digits when she orchestrated the whole thing.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Nicole realizes with some discomfort that Amy Cobri is competing with her brother Alex for Nicole's attention and affection.
• Fantastic Racism: A few slurs have come up for the Halyan't'a, with one of the most prominent being "Pussy". Nicole makes it clear in no uncertain terms that she won't stand for it.
• Frame-Up: Amy successfully frames her brother Alex for the program that was designed to make Nicole Brainwashed and Crazy and kill the President. It was easy enough since she used his tech, and had duped him into writing an assassination scenario as one of his VR games.
• Hot-Blooded: The Halyan't'a, literally and figuratively. They run warmer than humans and have a propensity to view things in terms of combat.
• In Love with the Mark: Downplayed. While not necessarily romantic, Amy Cobri finds that she likes Nicole after meeting her face to face, but had already put in place several mechanisms to have Nicole killed for ruining the Wolfpack operation that she had started.
• Last-Second Term of Respect: Nicole is furious with Kymri, one of the Halyan't'a she's working with, after he not so subtly implies that her ordeal with the wolfpack has caused her to lose her edge. "We've a full days work to do and we're not going to get it done standing around here. Sir."
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Early in the book, Nicole is nearly killed on the Moon by an accident with an airlock. Only after months of investigating had the authorities learned that it wasn't an accident. It had been carefully rigged to trigger on the access of the point by Nicole's ID card. And several similar traps were found buried deep in the coding. They were done by Amelia, who wanted to get even with Nicole for destroying her Wolfpack operation.
• The Man Behind the Man: Amelia Cobri is the one who was financing Morgan's wolfpack in the first book.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After the destruction of the Wolfpack, the Marshals had done a lengthy investigation, and learned that the Wolfpack had been operating in secret for five years, quietly murdering whole families, using false paperwork to show claim sales and immigration papers to show the miners returning Earthside. If Morgan hadn't gotten it in his head murder the crew of the Wanderer to settle a score with Cat Garcia and hurt Judith Canfield, they might have gone undetected for a very long time.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Col. Sallinger, who, by his own admission had disliked Nicole when she'd been stationed at Edwards AFB two years ago, blaming her for the death of a close friend, had decided in the intervening time that it wasn't Nicole's fault. He states unequivocally that he would have moved Heaven and Earth to have Nicole on his base for the Hybrid Project, even if she hadn't been grounded, because of her knowledge of and experience with the Halyan't'a. And he takes it very, very seriously when he learns that someone is trying to kill her.
  • Dr. Elias. He admits he tried to fail Nicole in the first novel because he felt she was cocky and arrogant. But that's not why he's grounding her now. He points out that her recent ordeal with the wolfpack, the lost of half her crew (which he acknowledges was no fault of hers), including her best friend, first contact with an alien species, a second armed conflict with the wolfpack and Daniel Morgan, and nearly dying were more in one aborted mission than most saw over a twenty year career, and that she was not ready to return to space. And as the novel goes on we see signs that he's right. And after the conclusion of the novel, when she saves Manuel Cobri and Lt. Col. Kinsella, he signs off on the paperwork restoring her to active astronaut duties.
• Self-Made Man: Manuel Cobri. And it is a point that his work to earn his fortune tempered him. However, his daughter, Amy, had no such tempering.
• Strawman Has a Point: Alex Cobri points out that the United States would have to surrender its sovereignty to the UN to be part of a unified government that the Halyan't'a seek to deal with.
• Taking You with Me: Alex Cobri remote commandeers his father's space plane to kill the both of them in a massive fireball when it collides with the abandoned Patriot Station.
• Tap on the Head: When Nicole realizes that Kinsella is too scared to leave the space plane herself, the only way to save her life is to knock her out, and, with Manuel Cobri's help, get her helmet on and lug her out of the space plane.
• Teen Genius: At 13, Amy has several degrees and the confidence to use them, and had been running the Wolfpack since she was 8 years old.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Amelia Cobri is described as an early-adolescent, with adult-like confidence, who swears, challenges her brother's initial girlfriend, Lt. Col. Grace Kinsella, crashes high level functions at the White House and Edwards AFB, and funded and directed the Wolfpack that Morgan was part of in the first book.
• The Unfavorite: Alex Cobri is this to his father, as he "has too much of his mother in him." But to the elder Cobri's chagrin, his daughter has too much of himself, literally.
• With All Due Respect: Nicole to Kinsella after the latter refers to the Halyan't'a as Pussy, "With all due respect, Colonel, you're out of line."

Sundowner

• And the Adventure Continues: Having gotten herself and her friends safely off the hostile terrain of s'N'dare, Nicole decides that it's time for them to make a world for themselves.
• Cat Girl: Any Halyan't'a female by defeault, Nicole as the aftereffects of the "Speaker" virus begin to take hold.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Ch'gan, using a blaster meant to knock ships out of the sky, accidentally mortally wounds The Great Old One. He does not escape unscathed, himself, his mind, and body, broken by the experience.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: Everyone assumes that the attempt on the Swiftstar and the strange computer issues aboard the StarShip Constitution were the handiwork of Amy Cobri, though Nicole has her doubts. She's right, as it was an alliance between one of her Halyan't'a officers, Ch'gan and the XO of the Constitution, Rossmore.
• Fantastic Racism: "Fuzzies" is the new term used for the Halyan't'a, presumably because it was both less vulgar than "Pussies" as used in the previous novel, and because it sounded like less of a misnomer, given that the Halyan't'a are Proud Warrior Race Guys.
• Half-Human Hybrid: It is revealed that Nicole was also subjected to the "Speaker" virus during the first contact, just as Ben Ciari was. In fact, she was far too compatible, and the Halyan't'a had to reverse the process immediately and go with Ciari as their primary choice. However, the efforts to undo the damage were only partly successful, and during an act of sabotage, Nicole mutates, developing fur and even being unable to speak or understand English for some time afterwards.
• Heel–Face Turn: After Alex's death, Amy realized just how screwed up her family was, and spent the last five years in isolation and therapy. She's still spoiled, demanding, and entitled, but she actually means well, this time.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: The Halyan't'a had considered attacking and invading the Earth to subjugate it. However, they were able to view our transmissions, and determined that our tech was roughly equal to theirs, and that humanity was far more bloodthirsty. Halyan't'a settle scores one on one. Humans fought and killed one another in masses. Better to be friends than risk human savagery as enemies.
• Interspecies Romance: Amy Cobri and Raqella, a human and a Halyan't'a, find each other particularly interesting. Nicole thinks Raq could do with a better partner.
• Lovecraft Lite: Nicole meets the "God" of the Halyan't'a, a massive tentacled being in the oceans of s'N'dare who is actually called The Great Old One. She learns, in short order, that this being elevated a female member of the Halyan't'a who'd fallen in the ocean, and that was both why all naturally occurring Speakers were female and why the Halyan't'a have an instinctive fear of open bodies of water.
• Manipulative Bitch: Shavrin is cast in a very negative light after the revelation of the "Speaker" virus being used on Nicole six years ago. It's notable that when confronted about it, she says that she did what was necessary, and she'd do it again.
• Never My Fault: Part of a Motive Rant from Amy towards the end. She admits that she caused the deaths of people with her wolfpack scheme, but points out that it was David Morgan who'd tried to kill Nicole then, and that he was going off script to kill Cat Garcia. She also said that the people who died were strangers to her, numbers on paper, and that she'd thought of it as a game, a puzzle to solve, not as an act of murder. She also points out that both she and her brother were genetically designed by her father to be what they were, and that after five years of therapy and counseling, she's trying to be someone else and put her father's legacy behind her. She's actually successful by story's end, with Nicole inherently sensing that Amy has no intentions of returning to Earth.
• Red Herring: In fact, two. Raqella, a hotheaded Halyan't'a youth, and Amy Cobri, previously established as the mastermind behind the Wolfpack that reeked so much havoc in the first book. Both are innocent.
• Shout-Out:
  • The new starship is the Constitution, the same class of ship as the Enterprise.
  • During a line-crossing party, there are people dressed as Klingons, Cylons, a man in a bathrobe, Daleks, and even a few unnamed anime characters, who Hana Murai is easily able to identify.
• Straw Misogynist: Rossmore makes it very clear that he feels he earned his rank, while stating that Nicole's was the result of a desire to appease the feminist movement.
• Time Skip: Set five years after the events of Grounded!
• Understatement: "I know Nicole and I have a history." And by history, Amy means that she financed the wolfpack that nearly killed Nicole and did kill several of her crew, then set deathtraps for Nicole after Nicole destroyed the wolfpack base, killing nearly everone in it, only to think better of it after actually meeting Nicole and deciding she liked her after all, but unable to stop the plan she'd put in motion to have Nicole Brainwashed and Crazy to kill the President.