Talon.
Viewed from orbit, the planet presented a gentle palette dominated by green and brown.
Vast tracts of farmland covered the continents like green velvet carpets, while crisscrossing rivers wound across the plains like silver ribbons glittering in the sunlight.
Mountains rose and fell in the distance, their snow-covered peaks looking especially magnificent against the blue sky and white clouds.
At this time, Taal was not yet the endless desert that would become so famous in later ages.
The dunes that swallowed everything, the cracked earth, the desolation that buried countless secrets beneath windblown sand—none of it existed yet.
Talon was still an Agri World, a prosperous land renowned for its fertile soil and mild climate, supplying the Imperium with vast quantities of food.
It also housed major ammunition, military production, and vehicle storage facilities established by the Imperium in Segmentum Tempestus.
Those facilities lay hidden beneath farmland and forests, disguised as ordinary warehouses or processing plants. Only careful observation from the air could reveal their reinforced roofs and concealed antiaircraft emplacements.
Deeper still, dozens or even hundreds of meters underground, lay an intricate network of bunkers and shelters.
Those tunnels and chambers could accommodate millions of residents during wartime and store enough supplies and ammunition to last for years. They formed a vital part of Segmentum Tempestus's defensive system.
The place Sharrowkyn infiltrated was called Crescent Province.
It was the largest administrative region in northern Taal, named for its coastline, which curved like a crescent moon.
It was also the heart of the northern region where most of the Imperium's underground shelter networks were located during the Great Crusade.
Construction of those shelter networks had begun centuries earlier, initially to provide refuge from xenos raiders. During the Great Crusade, Imperial engineering troops had greatly expanded and reinforced them, creating