Operation Lightning Strike

Having survived the events of Operation Thunder Child, humanity finally receives the opportunity it has always claimed to want: open contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Unfortunately, the aliens are approaching in an enormous spacecraft, will arrive within weeks and propose to settle on Earth. Their offer is peaceful partnership in exchange for colonisation, which is a little like somebody arriving with a removal van and politely suggesting that cooperation will make the change of ownership much less upsetting.

Governments and armed forces, already shaken by escalating UFO activity and earlier conflict, must confront the fact that conventional military power may be useless against a civilisation capable of crossing interstellar space. Political leaders begin the delicate business of first contact, balancing fear, diplomacy and national self-interest while attempting to decide whether the visitors genuinely come in peace or have merely discovered that invasion sounds friendlier when described as a partnership.

Before negotiations can determine whether two intelligent species might share one planet, a secretive human organisation known as the Enterprise provides a characteristically human solution. It unleashes a biological weapon against the aliens, then offers a vaccine on condition that they surrender their spacecraft. Thus Earth’s first interplanetary diplomatic conference progresses efficiently from cautious discussion to germ warfare, blackmail and the possibility of mutual extermination.

As the situation accelerates towards all-out war, military planners struggle to devise tactics against unfamiliar technology, politicians exchange accusations and the distinction between defence and provocation becomes increasingly difficult to locate. The aliens may possess advanced weapons and a vast mothership, but humanity retains its traditional advantages of paranoia, divided command structures and heavily classified schemes that were never mentioned at the previous meeting.

Nick Pope brings unusual authority to the machinery behind the adventure. Before writing fiction about alien invasion, he worked for the Ministry of Defence and ran the British Government office responsible for investigating UFO reports. Consequently, the novel combines extraterrestrial menace with convincing accounts of intelligence assessments, crisis committees, military doctrine, weapons systems and senior officials attempting to make civilisation-saving decisions from documents marked SECRET. Like its predecessor, the manuscript was formally vetted by the Government before publication, an achievement rarely required of novels involving biological attacks on aliens.

A sequel to Operation Thunder Child, Operation Lightning Strike expands the earlier encounters into a full-scale techno-thriller in which the fate of Earth depends upon soldiers, scientists, civil servants and politicians reaching sensible conclusions under impossible pressure. Combining the procedural detail of Tom Clancy with the subject matter of The X-Files, it is ideal for readers who prefer their flying saucers accompanied by RAF interceptors, Cabinet briefings and several departments disputing who has authority to shoot first.

Published by Simon & Schuster in 2000, this copy is in Good condition. It has passed civilian inspection, contains no known extraterrestrial pathogens and may be opened without prior clearance from the Ministry of Defence.

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