Editing The Atalantos Worlds (section)

====The Cannonball, Fortress World====
{{Infobox 40k Planet
|name= The Cannonball
|bgcolor=black
|fgcolor=white
|image=
|class= Fortress World
|orbdist= 35 AU
|gravity= 1.85 G
|temp= -270 C
|pop= 1,000,000 
|governor= Lady General Militant Alissandra de Cherenev
|system= Atalantos
|sector= Atalantos
|subsector= Primaris 
|segmentum= Ultima Segmentum
}}

Deep in the Atalantos System's recesses hides a small, shriveled companion to Atalantos' green finery. Dark Age Man protected Atalantos itself with the Basilikon Atalantos' technological prowess, but either they ignored the Cannonball or they could not defend it from whatever cataclysm scoured the very crust from its surface. Almost all of the Cannonball's mass is metallic, only a few hundred meters of solidified mantle hide the dense interior from view. Once, the Cannonball was a small gas giant, perhaps the size of Uranus or Neptune. 

The Imperium has sunk deep tunnels into the Cannonball, for it lacks a magnetic field and its burning heart has cooled and solidified with the passage of ages. No gaseous blanket meant nothing to keep heat from radiating into space. Once the other Atalantos Worlds brought their industrial capacity to maximum volume, mining the Cannonball became economically unviable, and the mighty drills and smelters moved on to more valuable hunting grounds. But the War Scribes do not like to leave potential resources unclaimed. 

It fell to the War Scribes' second Chapter Master, a far-sighted Marine named Danilov Holmis, to make use of the Cannonball. A veteran of the post-Heresy Scouring, he had first hand experience of the many horrors the Imperium would now face. His thoughts turned back to the still-young Atalantos Worlds, and he resolved to do all in his power to protect them. Underneath the Cannonball's battered surface, Chapter Master Danilov constructed vast military storehouses, colossal docking bays, huge armaments factories, and everything else needed to supply an entire Imperial Crusade if need be. Here, they would be protected with hundreds of miles of hardened metal. What more could a warlord ask for? Anything that ''could'' crack the Cannonball open would not be halted by Imperial arms, and so was not worth worrying about. 

One million Imperial Guardsmen are on station at all times, and at need the Cannonball can feed and house nearly ten billion within its endless metal warrens. In case of siege, food, water, and medical supplies sufficient to last 1,000 years are bunkered within the deepest catacombs. The only outward sign that humanity has claimed this desolate chunk of metal are the vast sensor arrays and shield projectors dotting the surface. Nothing comes within ten light-years of Atalantos without the Imperium knowing about it. Providing offensive capabilies are thousands of anti-voidship macrobatteries, tucked beneath retractable metal plates the size of hive-cities. 

As a special request to the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Adeptus Ministorium, the Cannonball has been engraved both inside and out with anti-Warp wards similar to those used in Geller Fields and Warpsbane hulls. Tiny scuttling drill-servitors carved billions of miles of finger-sized tunnels, lining the planet's bulk with endless arcane filigree made from silver, gold, platinum and other precious metals. The task required 1,000 years of exhaustive labor, but the more the Scribes learned of Chaos' insidious nature, the more urgent it became that they do all in their power to create a strongpoint with at least a faint hope of resisting the Gods' twisted desires. 

To this day, the Cannonball has yielded to no foe. 

''But the Gods have yet to take notice of it.''