The fighting had finally stopped as Max blasted the last pocket of a melee fight with his fire extinguisher. Anyone not wearing a mask was on the floor coughing, stumbling and leaning on those with masks to try and get out of the sudden blast of white CO2 that covered everyone equally. Throwing down several pens on the floor, Max more or less forced a DMZ on the floor. Anyone else who tried to start another fight got to meet the hard end of Big Red. Anyone who was hard enough to resist Big Red got to taste friendly fire via the nearest armored vehicle getting thrown at them.

Going back to the couch, he watched as the space marines finished up their combat with the Eldar Autarch before Max lowered the nozzle of the extinguisher at them. It turns out that while Arkius wasn't cataconic or anything like that (Astartes training tends to remove things like that), he was sort of stunned and silent. From what the marines were willing to tell Max, their chapter took oaths very seriously and the Chapter Master had been hit with the thought of if they had unintentionally abandoned their oaths to protect their system by being sucked out into the past.

"Hey, hey." Max got off his couch and kneeled on the carpet in front of the table, bringing him closer (hypothetically) to the sullen Arkius, "I don't know the details of what's going on. But don't beat yourself up over something you had no control over. I'm certain that you didn't purposely abandon your duty. There's no use being sad and dying for no reason before their great, great, great grandfathers were even born."

"... You make a good point Maximas." the Chapter Master stood up and took a deep breath, "It would be a foolish act of self pity."

"Can I rely on you to enforce a ceasefire on your men?" Max looked hopeful at the rest of the space marines in the back. Most had a similar rusted appearance as their chapter master while others had more traditional liveries. He could spot at least some Space Wolves, a handful of Ultramarines, a pack of White Scars on bikes and a spattering of bright colors that stood out from the rest of the Imperial blob.

"Aye. Upon my honor, there shall be no bloodshed in your household from the Adeptus Astartes." Arkius stabbed his blade into the table and put a fist over his chest in what was some sort of ceremony, "For the time being."

"The Laptorian Expedition will continue its priority objective of settling a new land." General Bragana followed suit but gave the Xenos a suspicious look, "However, we reserve the ability to fortify and take any actions deemed necessary towards that objective and defend the Emperor's Will."

Max nodded, it was probably the best he was going to get out of the Guard for the time being.

"The Tau seek similar goals." the battlesuit looked up at Max, "We have our own civilians and settlers we must protect and defend."

"The Eldar will not make any promises to a mon-keigh who cannot be guaranteed to not-"

WHAM

"Care to try that again?" Max sinisterly smiled at the Eldar flattened under the extinguisher who in turn stared at her Farseer who had taken a few steps back.

"Hurrghh... Fine!" Faeris picked herself up and brushed her armor off once the mighty crimson hammer of Max was removed, "We shall let the primitives do as they please so long as they do not interfere with our goals. You are counted among them."

Again, it was probably the closest that Max was going to get for the time being, "I suppose we should get everyone situated then. I already have some ideas..."

=][= =][= =][= =][= =][=

The house was a place that one of Max's real estate uncles had bought a while ago. However, no one was buying and still owing a favor to Max's dad, Max was the lucky receipt of the property for his duration at college. So long as he kept it clean and in working order, Max had the whole two story home to himself. After reading on about housekeeping and basic repairs, the guy had a pretty comfortable place to fulfill the ultimate millennial dream. The whole house was bare and spartan in that modern contemporary style of smooth linoleum floors and bare concrete walls. Max actually liked the style; it was a lot easier to clean hard floors than it was carpet. A fact all the more convenient when the legions of warriors from the grim far future came in and started fighting all over it.

From the front door, there was a hall cut in half by the stairs leading up. Bending around a corner, the wall had two doors: one leading to the laundry room that in turn led to the mostly empty garage and the other to the study where Max kept his computer, enjoying the homey feel of the wood it had. On the other wall was another pair of doors, one leading downstairs to a messy basement, and the other to the only bathroom on the floor. The hall finally ended in a large, open space that housed both the dining table and the living room consisting of the TV, a coffee table, and a pair of couches in an L shape. Between it and the long half wall that separated the living room from the kitchen area, was the sliding glass door on to the patio which in turn led to the backyard. The property was on a lonely forested hill with no neighbors and only the wilderness beyond. Max hated to admit it, but when he first moved in, he was mildly scared of what could lurk in the shadowy forests beyond. He grew out of the fear eventually. The mass of sci-fi warriors and their armies also really helped to reinforce it.

Going up the stairs, the second level held the master bedroom with an attached bathroom where Max slept, a trio of bedrooms, another bathroom and another open area with seating and a table that pushed one of the bedrooms up against the master. The walls all over the house were mostly bare, sparing Max's master bedroom, but there was still a load of stuff in each of the closets and cupboards. Max's mother had insisted on him taking a bunch of stuff and there was already a good deal of scattered junk in the house. On a hunch, Max guessed that the house was used as storage for his extended family while the house wasn't on sale.

It was fascinating to watch these tiny armies go to work constructing their own bases and settlement for Max. Like an ant colony that could talk and interact with him. All three had taken advice from Max on how they could build up (who in turn had to reference that older story he once read). It had only been a fully day since everyone appeared and still, most were going at it with great vigor. It probably helped that at least a few of the factions were supposed to be colonization efforts. Turns out the difference in setting up a base on a barren world wasn't as different as it was setting up a base on the floor of a giant's house.

The Guard and the AdMech had set up one of the bedrooms on the other side of the hall from Max's room. The marine contingent had opted to set up in the open area on the floor while the Sisters claimed the bedroom closest to the bathroom in the name of Saint Joyane.

Peaking into the Guard's room, Max couldn't help but smile as he saw the row upon row of neatly organized Lego blocks. It was a technicolor mess that wasn't easy on the eyes, but just watching the soldiers use their Chimeras to pull cardboard sleds of blocks against the bare floor was amazing. It was like all of those times Max played with toy soldiers, building a base out of premade plastic sandbags and shoebox command bunkers.

From what he had learned, the Guardsmen contingent originally journeyed into the Luptorian System (the General's accent made U's and A's sound similar at times) done out of what the commissar told me was likely a political move. The guardsmen were there to protect the transports while being reinforcements to one of the hold out planets. An explorator fleet of the Mechanicus was tagging along as there were reports of valuable technology on one of the worlds. But unfortunately, it didn't seem like the entire fleet made it. Only half the explorator fleet had managed to come into Max's living room and a large portion of the civilians the guard was supposed to escort didn't appear either.

"Hey Max." a calmed and grizzled voice appeared on top of the dresser, "I have the General's requisition orders. He'd like to thank you in person for what you've done so far, but there's a meeting he has to attend so I'm here."

The man wore the unmistakable black greatcoat and pointed hat of the commissariat. In fact, Werden J Basklow was the Lord Commissar of the expedition. Man was tough as nails with only the Marines and a few of the Sisters having more combat experience than him. Yet his demeanor was calm and stoic, with a preference for leading from the front instead of bold speeches and liberal amounts of executions. He had been instrumental in getting Max up to speed with the Luptorian Expedition. How of the regiments that survived, two had been from the General's homeworld of Sallot, the 19th Sallotic Fire Corp and the 88th Sallotic Armored Corp, with the Cadian 231st Infantry and the Armageddon 97th Mechanized being the biggest to have also come through.

"Thank you commissar." Max took the awkwardly sized piece of paper and looked over it, more materials and food mostly, "Does the Mechanicus require anything?"

"The servants of the Omnissiah requested additional metal and more of your ancient technology to research." The slow, spaced out mechanical male voice of the Magos Explorator J-1M had been drilled into Max's head as one of the more constant ones due to his incessant request to study everything from Max's smartphone to the microwave. Hell, they nearly cut off the wifi to the whole house with one of their "expeditions" to the study. Had it not been for Magos Errant H4-NH, Max probably would have just locked the leader of the Mechanicus forces in a box somewhere. She was slightly more tolerable, if not for the fact her speech cadence wasn't half as jarring to Max.

"I'll be sure to make a note of that." Max mumbled under his voice, turning his gaze away from the metal body of J-1M who had accompanied Basklow.

The Mechanicus had claimed the empty metal bed frame in the center of the bedroom as their own domain. While a far cry from the huge, sprawling manufactorums of a forge world, their industries impressed Max. Their development was only out paced by the Tau. Workshops were already being set up and plasma cutters where being used to cut down soup cans and other materials to cover the Bed Frame Plateau into a solid platform. A crude ramp was cobbled together out of an unused notebook, reinforced with the stiffest of cardboard, and held up by fishing rod wire on wenches. Ground vehicles rumbled up and down it in an orderly line to reach the workshops and maintenance bays. Flyers were lucky and instead just landed on frisbees used as landing pads.

As Max turned out of the door, he nearly stepped down on a black Rhino transport that let out an obnoxious screech of a horn to warn him. Quickly apologizing, he let the transport convoy pass, watching them take water tanks made of soup cans laid flat drive out of the hallway bathroom and into the side room. Poking his head in, he saw the Order of the Sacred Chalice continue to build their very ambitious project of a suitable cathedral. Large sheets of cardboard were everywhere, being cut into smaller pieces using swords or borrowed lasers. Then they were each painted or decorated with finishing from any number of workshops in this room or the Guard's room. There was a slight smell of burnt plastic as workers cut into several colored plastic bottles to create a "stained glass" window.

There was a very knightly feel to the incomplete design, resembling more like a castle with its walls and towers as opposed to an ordinary cathedral. As Max learned from one of the Conservators, the Order was originally from a feudal world and were big into the ideas of chivalry and knighthood. Most of the sisters were either knights or daughters of knightly houses prior to joining.

"Brother Max." Canoness Selora flew in front of Max's face carrying a basket of scrolls, "Emperor bless you for your generous grant of land and material to our order."

"No problem sister. Need anything else?"

"Aside from general foodstuffs? I suspect we'll need more materials to create monuments to the Emperor for the cathedral."

"I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, good work on your building. Can't wait to see it finished!"

The canoness smiled at the complement before she flew away. Careful not to walk chest first into a passing Valkyrie, Max had one last stop on the top floor before heading downstairs for breakfast and to check on the xenos: the Space Marines.