It was from this appeal that Amanda Hunt, the volunteers stringing claymores and the grading contractors who had dug the cavalry positions had sprung.
It was quickly determined that the biggest time factor was not going to be cutting out embankments to make walls or backfilling the mile-long floodwall — there was enough heavy equipment in surplus to backfill it twice over in six hours — but rather rubbling the three newer concrete factories along the James and turning the rubble into a hasty wall.
The preferred method for rubbling a factory was to lace it with explosives and drop it in one piece. Unfortunately all the personnel who were adept at that task were either rigging the bridges over the James or laying the ambushes on the roads to the north. The civilian specialists on the ambush teams were about to be called back when a junior officer on the corps staff had a brainstorm.
Less than an hour later a brigade of the Seventy-Fifth Armored Division rolled across the Mayo bridge and through Schockoe Bottom. Since it was also determined that the two- and three-story brick buildings would offer far too much cover to the, hopefully, trapped Posleen, the brigade paid little attention to roads.
After nearly a hundred seventy-ton M-1E tanks rolled, literally, through the area, there was hardly a building left standing. A couple of the bars were intentionally spared in case they still had liquor in them.
When they reached the area of the concrete factories, each battalion singled out a building. Each tank was given certain points to take under fire and clear fire lanes. The area around and behind the factories was evacuated and the brigade opened fire.
High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) rounds were used for breaching lower floors, while senior NCO tank commanders used Discarding Sabot Armor Piercing Rounds, “silver bullets,” to destroy key structural members. These members had been thoughtfully highlighted by the engineering group with orange spray paint.
Under the pounding assault the buildings gave way, finally crumbling to the ground like slumping giants. One of the factories retained much of its structural integrity even after the lower floors gave way, but that was dealt with by a few rounds and a battalion road march, right center, front. Satisfied with the start to their day, the brigade rolled back across the James to their laager point and a chance to get some rest before the big game.
The furious pace of work continued throughout the night of distant battle and a new day dawned on Richmond transformed.
The towering interstate and highway bridges that loomed over Schockoe Bottom were either mined, ready to blow, or had had their concrete surfaces cut in such a way that cranes, standing by with lift cables in place, could lift them up, leaving a bridge of only narrow concrete beams for the Posleen to cross.
This late idea was suggested in the hope that the bridges could be salvaged. There were over twenty bridges that would have to be cut and the cost of replacing all of them after the conflict would be staggering. Although the Posleen could cross such a structure, they could only cross in a trickle, one line of centaurs to a beam, making them easy meat for the human defenders. Afterwards the bridges would have to be repaired, surveyed and recertified, but that was far less expensive than the cost of replacement.
The north-side floodwall had been backfilled, its gate controls reversed to lock from the river side and the riverside road regraded and reinforced for heavy vehicle traffic. Mayo Island had been transformed into a command bunker by piling and interconnecting prefab concrete slabs and covering the temporary structure with dirt and rubble. The upper portion overlooked the whole floodwall and it was from this location that the Forty-Ninth and Sixtieth Infantry Division commanders would maneuver their troops.
The island also now held the reserve — a brigade of the Sixtieth Infantry Division — that would respond to any breaches of the wall. It was anticipated that eventually the defenders of the wall would have to retreat, and the Mayo Island forces were also intended to establish a base of fire to enable a safe and secure escape route. The Mayo bridges, both to the north and the south of the island, were also mined and ready to drop.
On the east side of the city, all along the I-95 corridor through Richmond, road embankments had been joined and rubble had been piled creating a continuous wall that would be well-nigh impossible for the Posleen to climb. To make it even more difficult, angle iron welded with sharpened rebar, saw blades and anything else sharp and metal that came to hand had been piled in front of the embankments and laced with concertina wire.
Above these embankments temporary “Jersey” walls, easily recognized as the low temporary walls seen around highway construction, had been emplaced, creating a continuous barrier from behind which the infantry and armor of the Seventy-First Infantry Division could pour fire into the passing centaurs with relative impunity. While the three-millimeter railguns and HVMs of the Posleen would easily breach the wall, the majority 1mm and shotguns would bounce off. Although there would be casualties, the defenders had an excellent position.
With two brigades of the Seventy-First “up” and one back as reinforcement, any temporary breaches in the lines would be easy to fill. All along the route, the towering buildings overlooking the defenses held snipers, their .50 caliber rifles zeroed onto the interstate. Their job was to dispense with any God King that might try to overfly the defenses.
On the north side of the city the roads and buildings had been blockaded with a physical barrier of cross-piled Jersey walls and stacked cars. Thousands of personal automobiles had gone into creating virtually impenetrable multivehicle-deep barriers. Buildings had been sealed and faired over or had concrete slabs piled in front of them to prevent any entry by the Posleen on that side.
The Sixty-Fourth Infantry Division awaited the Posleen in this sector, bunkered into second-floor rooms with heavy sandbag emplacements.
The roads leading out of Schockoe Bottom had been blockaded using all of the previous methods and, in addition, engineers and armored fighting vehicles of the Forty-Eighth ID had dropped the James Monroe building across Broad and Franklin Streets. The multistory government building formed a massive barrier of mangled concrete and steel which was further laced with concertina barbed wire. The building demolition had not been the precision undertaking usually associated with such an endeavor. In fact, it had impacted against the Consolidated Laboratory building. If the city survived, that building might have to be replaced. But better to replace a building than a state.
Despite the obvious structural damage, the Lab building along with the Corporation Commission, the Ferguson building and the DOT annex was packed with the troops of the Forty-Eighth Infantry Division. With a perfect view of Schockoe Bottom and plunging fire, the unit was poised to pound the Posleen as soon as they came into view, while their armored fighting vehicles manned the barricades. The joke among the troopers on the Lab building was that since the morgue was just downstairs, they would not have far to go.
Around the perimeter of Schockoe Bottom other tanks and engineers had been at work removing the construction efforts of the last few decades to create hasty fighting positions. The James Center, the First Union Bank, Riverside Plaza and even the Federal Reserve had given of their structures to create a wall of rubble around the heart of the city. Behind them, troops from the Seventy-Third Infantry Division held a long, light line, designed to pin the Posleen in place for destruction by the troops along the floodwall.
At Riverfront Plaza, the wall finally necked off, joining with the end of the floodwall. The “neck off” point of the defenses would probably come under heavy attack, so it was reinforced with tanks of the Seventy-Fifth Armored Division in the heaviest revetments possible to construct. Although the Posleen could spread onto Browns Island, all of the foot bridges but one had been removed. It was intended to act as a bleed off for their forces.