Battle of Zimia

The Battle of Zimia was an assault by Agamemnon's forces in 203 BG against Salusa Secundus, the capital world of the League of Nobles. It was the first concentrated robotic aggression after a century of cold war. The assault was timed to occur while the nobles had a gathering in the planet's Hall of Parliament.

Prelude
The robotic fleet of armored warships, led by general Agamemnon inside his pyramid-shaped vessel, was ten times the size and power of any force Omnius had ever before sent against the League of Nobles. Soon they overwhelmed the crews of sentry human vessels which opened fire but the robotic ships vaporized the diffuse inner perimeter of human defenses. Only a few distant scouts managed to transmit a warning to the ground.

Because of the existence of a Holtzman shield network, Agamemnon and his small vanguard of cymeks pressed forward on a mission to disrupt the defense grid and open the way for the machines. Dropcarriages would penetrate the defenses while the robots would prepare for a ground attack.

Xerxes and 3 neo-cymeks, shut down the subsidiary systems of their pyramidal ships and their armored dropcarriages fell unguided into the atmosphere. They crash-landed on the outskirts of the prime city of Zimia, where the main shield-generating towers were located, followed by Agamemnon and other ships, 28 in total.

Description
The Salusan Militia responded. The warship commanders called their crews to battle-ready status immediately. 16 patrol battle groups and picket ships were scattered at random, the shields operated, and the Hall of Parliament was evacuated. Tercero Xavier Harkonnen was dispatched from the military control center with a portable com-station in order to give reports; he witnessed the Cymeks hatching from the pyramid ships and realized why the shields have been ineffective.

This saved his life: a dropcarriage fell and levelled the control center, along with his comrades, including Primero Vannibal Meach; he instantly claimed temporarily charge of the Militia. Harkonnen envisioned the route of the cymeks who ravaged and burned the city and realized they were heading for the shield generators, while the robotic fleet formed and waited in orbit. He met with a grave dilemma; he had no other choice and ordered the Salusan Militia to fall back and defend the generators, now the single most vital target, leaving the rest of Zimia undefended and exposed to poisonous gas and flames.

Reluctantly, the troops mounted a defense around the parabolic latticework of transmitting towers while the cymeks continued to destroy the city, hoping the troopers would divert their defenses. Meanwhile Harkonnen rode a kindjal and commanded a concentrated assault against each cymek independently. 6 cymeks were destroyed and Xerxes barely escaped in a launch pod containing his preservation canister, before all the remaining cymek, realizing the futility of the mission, abandoned their warrior-forms. Escape containers blasted out into space, where the robotic fleet could retrieve their canisters.

Aftermath
The event put the League of Nobles under red alert and the effectiveness of the Holtzman Shields was questioned. The Savant Tio Holtzman desperately started to look for an improvement.

After the battle, Harkonnen was promoted to Segundo but suffered serious trauma from inhaling toxic gas. He had his lungs and olfactory organs replaced, retaining thenceforth only a little percentage of his sense of smell and taste.

Omnius responded with an attack against Giedi Prime.

Appearances

 * Dune: The Butlerian Jihad
 * Dune: The Machine Crusade