The ColSec Trilogy

The ColSec Trilogy (Exiles of ColSec, The Caves of Klydor, and ColSec Rebellion) is a young-adult s-f series by Douglas Hill (of Last Legionary fame), first published in the 1980s.

After the End, an authoritarian regime has seized control of what's left of civilization. Criminals and dissenters are shipped offworld by the Colonization Section of the world government. If they can build a colony, the world is ripe for exploitation; if they don't live that long, they're no great loss.

One particular group of deportees crash-lands. The survivors decide that they're going to do things their own way, the world government be damned.

Oh, hell...it's Better Than It Sounds.

""Nothing funnier than victory?""
 * Action Girl: Heleth, unequivocally. Samella Connel also has her moments.
 * Aerith and Bob: Names are either singular and fantastical (Jeko, Heleth, Rontal), or consist of a slightly unusual or fairly ordinary given name paired with a fairly ordinary (if sometimes idiosyncratically spelled) surname (Cord MaKiy, Samella Connel, Bren Lathan). Being as it's post-apocalyptic, it's possible that this is the result of language drift.
 * After the End: Set a century and change after human die-back over much of Europe, Asia, and eastern North America. References to the "Virus Decades" imply that this was caused by some sort of plague.
 * At Arm's Length: At one point in Exiles, Jeko and Heleth get into a heated argument that threatens to turn into an actual fight. Cord breaks it up by straight-arming Jeko. (Although Cord isn't stated to be taller than Jeko—both boys are kind of shorties—he's stockier and a lot stronger.)
 * Author Tract: Not obnoxiously so, but you can kind of tell that Hill's views were fairly anti-authoritarian. There's also a faint undercurrent of anti-corporatism and/or environmentalism—Cord's simple life in the idyll of the Highlands before his exile, the unspoiled new worlds of the Colonies being exploited by the grasping Organization.
 * Better to Die Than Be Killed: tries to pull this several times.  There's also.
 * Big Damn Heroes: play this role towards the end of Exiles by . And in Rebellion,  play this role when they.
 * Blinded by the Light: Heleth gets a face full of high-beams in Rebellion and actually faints from pain.
 * Brave Scot: Cord is the descendant of back-to-the-land types who retreated to the Scottish Highlands so as to not be bothered by The Organization. He pretty much plays the trope straight.
 * Crapsack World: The Organization's Earth (aside from a few tiny pockets of territory that they don't deem worthwhile) makes the colony worlds—no matter how rough and dangerous—look positively idyllic by contrast.
 * Combat Pragmatist: Samella is a surprisingly dirty fighter. Sometimes literally so, no less.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Cord may be a physical powerhouse, but he's no match for someone with extensive combat training.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Seems to be one of Rontal's main personality traits.
 * Determinator: Cord, full-stop.
 * Dumb Blonde: Samella inverts this by being The Smart Guy of the group.
 * Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Heleth—a Stealth Expert with Super Senses who's lived underground most of her life—has black hair and a complexion that's compared in Exiles to "mushrooms grown in darkness." (She's rather badly sunburnt by Caves.)  And she's got facial tattoos.
 * Egopolis: Inverted at the end of Rebellion..
 * Elite Mooks: The Organization's equivalent of a police force, the Civil Defenders, have an elite branch who are better armed and are touted as having extensive combat training. They're called Crushers, and are frequent antagonists in the second and third novels. Elite paramilitary police, regularly beaten by street gang members—money well invested!
 * The Empath: Samella, again, although this only factors into the plot at all in Exiles.
 * : In Rebellion, everyone just loses it at some tension-breaking silliness.

""Nothing sweeter, anyway.""

"Samella: "I think the current's speeding up.""
 * Evil Albino: Lamprey, the main antagonist, is deathly pale and prematurely white-haired. He's also a vicious, unpredictable trained killer.
 * Fiery Redhead: Cord has anger issues, especially if Samella is endangered. They're somewhat mitigated, however, by his introversion and relentless decency.
 * Five-Man Band: More or less, although most of the central cast overlap archetypes. (Samella, for example, is mostly The Smart Guy, but occasionally also plays the role of The Lancer—level-headed and extroverted where Cord is introverted and occasionally quick-tempered—and The Heart.)
 * Four-Temperament Ensemble: Cord is Leukine with Choleric tendencies, Samella is Phlegmatic, Heleth is straight-up Choleric, Jeko is Sanguine, and Rontal is Melancholic.
 * Frame-Up: What got Samella exiled. Some other indentured workers at the computer firm got jealous of her skills and falsely accused her of theft.
 * The Gadfly: Jeko. Heleth is his preferred target, but he's also gone after Cord a couple of times.
 * Genki Boy: Jeko again.
 * Gonk: Lamprey is rather blatantly described as one—pallid, cadaverous-looking, and sharp-toothed.
 * Got Volunteered: Samella's family sold her into indenture out of desperation.
 * Groin Attack: In the third book, first flings dust in a thug's face, then kicks him in the nuts while he's distracted.
 * A Handful for An Eye: See above. "Now who needs looking after?"
 * Hot-Blooded: Cord (who verges on Berserker status), Heleth (who occasionally hauls off and belts people who needle her), Jeko (whom Rontal calls an "action junkie" at one point).
 * Humans Are White: Averted. Cord, a redheaded, freckle-faced Scot, is the only central character who seems to be explicitly white. Samella is a gray-eyed blonde with an Irish surname, but apparently still looks tanned after three years indentured to an electronics firm; Heleth, although pale from living underground for the first seventeen years of her life, is ambiguous. Jeko and Rontal are explicitly not white; Rontal is black, Jeko is Japanese-American.
 * If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him: Played straight more than once.
 * If We Survive This: Heleth threatens to make Jeko regret insinuating that she used to be chubby in Rebellion.
 * I'm Having Soul Pains: Samella gets migraines in Exiles.
 * Innate Night Vision: Heleth has this, with the drawback of light sensitivity. Exactly how she got that way is left ambiguous; however, Samella speculates in Caves that Heleth and the rest of the inhabitants of the tunnels under London may be some sort of mutants.
 * Inevitable Waterfall: Caves begins with the five central characters rafting down a river. The first line of dialogue in the book?

"Jeko: "You throw your guns down and come out!""
 * Karmic Death: towards the end of Exiles. In Rebellion,  after selling everyone out.
 * Kill Him Already: Heleth pretty much outright yells this in Exiles when.
 * Meaningful Name: Lamprey boasts that he earned his Nom De Guerre for his tenacity. He could just have easily have earned it by virtue of being as mean as an eel, or by virtue of being an emotional parasite on the central cast.
 * My Nayme Is: Cord's surname is an obvious phoneticization of "McKay."
 * Nephewism: Cord was raised by his uncle.
 * Nature Hero: Cord is a downplayed example. He grew up in an isolated corner of Scotland, has extensive wilderness survival skills, and is introverted and socially naïve; also, his hair is described as somehow unruly in every book.
 * No Biochemical Barriers: Not universal, but explicitly stated to be true of Klydor specifically: It's more-or-less safe to forage in the woods, but watch out for predators.
 * Not Good with People: Samella calls Cord out for being socially naïve in Exiles.
 * No, You: When ColSec Commandant Mirvandel demands the rebels' surrender in Rebellion, Jeko's response is a catcall:


 * One-Handed Zweihander: Cord's improvised bludgeon in Exiles is stated to be heavy enough that "many people" would need both hands to wield it effectively. And Cord uses it one-handed, apparently just because he can.
 * Only One Name: Tends to be true of people living, shall we say, outside the law (Jeko, Heleth, and Rontal included).
 * Penal Colony: Every habitable planet is treated as one. There may or may not also be one in Antarctica.
 * Police State: The entire world has pretty much become one.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The central cast.
 * Redheaded Hero: Cord, although his hair is specifically described as dark auburn.
 * Reluctant Warrior/Technical Pacifist: Samella is the least physical of the central cast, and seems to have a moral opposition to killing. That said, in a pinch, she's not afraid to.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: What got Cord exiled. His uncle/adoptive father was turned away from a hospital and left to die; Cord tried to trash the place. (And that was only the first of several.)
 * Robinsonade: Of sorts.
 * Running Gag: Samella calling Cord a "barbarian."
 * Sand Worm: A recurring threat in Exiles. Justified in that they have tough exoskeletons and don't dig themselves in that deeply.
 * Self-Destruct Mechanism: rigs  to detonate at her next keystroke .  acts of VehicularSabotage, in Exiles and Caves respectively, may also count, although the former was only such by virtue of the freighter's lack of re-entry shielding.
 * Ship Tease: A clearly deliberate one for Cord and Samella; although it's never outright stated, it's fairly clear that he's in love with her by Rebellion, and she seems to reciprocate. Jeko and Heleth have an implied but much more subtle (for a certain value of "subtle," that is) one.
 * Sixth Ranger:
 * The Stool Pigeon: is a "Betrayer Barry" of the "just a jerkass" variety.
 * Stout Strength: Cord plays with the trope. He's very strong (bordering on Charles Atlas Superpower territory) and looks pudgy when fully clothed (partly on account of being built like a fireplug, partly on account of being baby-faced). However, when he loses his shirt during a fight in Exiles, he's revealed to actually be quite trim.
 * Super Senses: Heleth and the rest of the Bunker dwellers have, quote, "eyes like owls and hearing like cats."
 * Team Dad: Although he does his best to treat the (much younger) five central characters like equals,.
 * Token Adult
 * True Companions: The five main characters by the end of Exiles.
 * Tsundere: Heleth is a type A. She's always bickering with Jeko (and, to a lesser degree, almost everyone else), but there's the occasional implication that she doesn't outright hate him.
 * Unskilled but Strong: Cord is not a trained martial artist, but anything he can actually land a punch on is usually out for the count.
 * Unusual Euphemism: Heleth uses "yeck" as both the obvious expression of disgust, and as an apparent euphemism for "shit" (calling people who annoy her "yecks" and "yeck-heads" and things she dislikes "yecky").
 * Vehicular Sabotage: The series all but starts out with, thus allowing the central cast to survive in the first place. In Caves,.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Samella's empathic ability never comes into play again after Exiles.
 * When She Smiles: Samella plays it straight.
 * Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Cord sets out to in Caves. His plan involves . Things don't go entirely according to plan...
 * Wrench Wench: Samella, although computer hardware is more her forte.
 * You Are Fat: Cord is on the receiving end of quite a bit of this in Exiles (and it's lampshaded at the beginning of Caves). This is mostly due to Lamprey trying to stir the shit. And in Rebellion, Jeko inverts this at Heleth, stating that she "doesn't look as fat as she used to." (Neither character is fat, although both are solidly built.)
 * You Have No Chance to Survive: The Organization's prime flunkies seem fond of this.