Nicole Shea Series by Chris Claremont

After Lt. Shea fails a simulation test, she is given a second chance. She is to play pilot to a minimal-hassle scientific mission which turns out to be mankind's first contact with alien life.

Lt. Nicole Shea was once a top space pilot. She crushed a marauding Wolfpack, and established First Contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. Now they've taken away her flight rating and reassigned her to a diplomatic post on Earth. Shea is supposed to disappear into the footnotes of history. She may have been forgotten by her fellow humans, but the defeated raiders have not forgotten her; neither have the alien Halyan't'a.

Tired of life on the ground, Lieutenant Nicole Shea is delighted when she is asked to join the crew of the Starswift, the controversial first joint human-alien mission into space.