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However, despite the enthusiastic reception by the Twelfth Corps Commander, who was tasked with the defense of Richmond and southern Virginia, Keene was less enthusiastically received by the other engineers. Each of them had their own pet projects to advance and the internecine fighting was the fundamental reason that the defenses were lagging.
The Corps Engineer, Colonel Bob Braggly, commander of the Corps Engineering Brigade, preferred turning the Libby and Mosby Hills into a giant firebase and giving up the center of Richmond to the Posleen. The city engineer, given quasimilitary standing by the new «Fortress Forward» stance, absolutely refused to surrender one inch of ground, preferring the concept of a wall enclosing the entire city limits.
Various local engineering firms had been called in to break the deadlock. Instead they offered their own versions or negated each other's effects by weighing in on one side or the other. Either project was going to be the biggest engineering contract in a hundred years of Richmond's history, ten or twenty times as large as the Floodwall project.
The corps commander had flatly stated that there was no way to defend a wall that extensive with the troops at hand. But one of his subordinates, the Twenty-Ninth Infantry Division commander, had bypassed the corps commander in the chain of command and sent staff studies supporting the elongated wall to First Army. John Keene, as a disinterested third party recommended through national command, was a possible way to break the deadlock.
Keene looked at the map again and walked under the Martin Agency building into the circle at one hundred Schockoe Slip. Mueller had never been this way and had gotten slightly turned around but it only took a moment for him to reorient himself when he saw the Richbrau microbrewery. It had been a long day and he was trying to figure out a way to subtly suggest that maybe it was Miller time, when Keene finally responded, «I'm thinking of Diess.»
«So am I,» remarked Mueller, following his own thought process, «it sure is warm for October.» In fact the weather had been unseasonably cool, but he was about to continue in the vein that a cold Ole Nick would go down a treat when he realized that Keene had gone almost catatonic in thought. He waited for him to go on. «Is this when I'm supposed to prompt you,» he finally prompted, «or when I'm supposed to shut up and wait?»
Keene looked at the fountain in the middle of the circle without replying and muttered, «Captain Morgan, I am really sorry for what we are going to do to you.» Then turning back to Mueller he thumbed across the street. «Time for a cold one, Sergeant.»
Once they were seated in the dimness of the microbrewery, having dodged the various street people between themselves and their goal, Keene became abruptly animated.
«Okay,» he said taking a sip of the tasty malt and stabbing the map, «how do you kill Posleen?»
«Well, apparently they've ruled out poison gas,» Mueller joked, «so I guess that leaves artillery.»
«Right, and what is the problem with killing them with artillery?»
«I don't know.» Mueller waited for Keene to go on but realized that the engineer was really testing him. «Forward observers I suppose. Seeing them while staying alive yourself,» he finally answered testily. He'd had more than enough personal experience with how hard they were to kill.
«In part. And that if you don't contain them, physically, they both do more damage and have the option to figure out how to get to your forces. The best thing is to keep them at arms' reach. Failing that, to have them contained where you have superior terrain advantage, man-made or natural. With me so far?»
«Yep.»
«Okee-dokee. On Diess, once the humans got their shit together, they formed the boulevards into tremendous killing grounds. In Te
«Never work here,» countered Mueller. He was familiar with the Diess operation where the Third Corps commander had built walls along the boulevards and slaughtered the Posleen. The differences in cities were marked. «The skyscrapers are too flimsy, the distances are shorter and the city engineer would have a cow. Then the governor, who is a buddy of the city engineer and the Twenty-Ninth ID commander and, for that matter, the President, would have a cow.»
«Sure,» agreed Keene, easily. «But would they give up Schockoe Bottom?»
Mueller thought about that one. «Possibly,» he finally answered. «I would have to say probably.» The area was half deserted, with only a few businesses and the bars that supplied the local forces with beverages surviving the economic blight.
«On every other planet the Posleen have invaded for the past hundred and fifty years, all the wealth, the production wealth, is in the megascrapers,» Keene pointed out. «The Galactics have their factories built right into them. So, the Posleen are expected to go for our skyscrapers; if it's low, it's less of a target to them.
«So when they land near Richmond, from any direction, they're going to head for the city center. Now, Richmond should have been evacuated by then. The city engineer can bitch all he wants, but CONARC has designated the i
«So, using techniques as yet undetermined, we will lure the Posleen forward from every direction, but all the roads will lead to Schockoe Bottom and none of them will lead out. The tough part, the heavy engineering part, will be making sure that, one, they can only get to Schockoe Bottom and, two, they can't get back out.»
«Posleen check in . . .» said Mueller with a growing smile.
« . . . but they don't check out. You got it. I want to go look at those heights across the way . . .»
«That's Libby Hill. It was next on the agenda.»
«But first I want to get a better look at the Bottom. It would be good if we could set up some sort of direct-fire positions into the pocket. I was thinking of firing from across the river, but maybe we could build a berm.»
«What's wrong with the Wall?» asked Mueller, puzzled. «Besides wracking stress. Can't we just backfill?»
«What wall?» asked the puzzled engineer.
* * *
John Keene looked up at the thirty feet of reinforced concrete that made up the mile-long Richmond floodwall and gri
For the next two hours he and Mueller walked around the floodwall, Schockoe Bottom and the surrounding area, occasionally driving when something in the distance caught their fancy. Finally they stood in Mosby Park, on Mosby Hill, where a group of children from a nearby preschool played under the careful tutelage of elderly teachers. As Keene looked down his mind was filled with visions of fire.
«We can just pack the back side of this hill with those stubby tube artillery things . . .»
«Do you mean mortars?» asked Mueller, chuckling.
«Yeah, them. Do you know they have more killing power than much larger artillery?» Keene continued animatedly.
«Um, yeah. I knew that.»
«It's because they don't need as heavy a casing.»
«I know, sir.»
«Right. Anyway. We block off exit from the pocket on this side by rubbling those abandoned factories down there and piling the rubble from the wall to this hill.»
«Got it,» said Mueller, sketching a diagram on his AID.
«On the other side, it's not as good but we have plenty of time and concrete. We'll build a wall co