The next few years on earth were quite anticlimactic. We rebuilt, we farmed, we ate, we slept, and the cycle repeated. I managed almost everything, but as the years droned on, things started to look up for us humans. I gave all of my knowledge of spacecraft to our engineers and we made quite a few successful spacecraft of second and third tier quality. This made us much more useful to the Chimeras, and that caused them to send help in the rebuilding process. After about nine years, the fairy queen invited me to another boot camp. We got more knowledge and more skills, but I won’t go into the details. Either way, after the camp, we could start building fourth-tier ships, but we would have to replace things we didn’t know how to build with things we did.

Thuis year though, ten years after the Chimeras attacked, not counting the boot camps, of course, things started to change. With our knowledge, we could no longer stay a client species of the Chimeras. We were above them and still shooting up. We went on a visit to see the Chimera leadership. We got there within a mere week with our new ships. We took a dropship to the ground, went into their office building, got to the top floor, with the silhouettes of the chimeras and talked.

“I understand that you humans have grown your knowledge of technology to almost a fourth-tier species, yes?” Asked a Chimera on the far left that looked like a serpent.

“Yes,” I replied simply.

“Is humanity going to keep growing at this speed in the future?” asked a bulky Chimera in the middle.

“We intend to, yes,” I replied.

The Chimeras talked amongst themselves for a little over a minute. “Then we would like to become your client species,” declared the bulky Chimera.

“What are your terms?” I asked.

“We want protection. You must offer us and our only client species protection, as well as teach js technology one tier below where you are now. We will follow any orders you give us, and may even be allowed to become envoys or considered important if we prove our usefulness. Those are our terms,” answered the middle Chimera.

“Agreed. However, you still have to wait until we're at fourth tier before we teach you third tier things, remember that,” I replied.

“Very well. As with most contracts like this, the contract is terminated only if we reach your level of technology or if we go higher,” declared the middle Chimera.

“Agreed,” I said, “Welcome to the Human Empire.”

The contract was sealed. Mankind now had a client species.

“Do you have any orders right now?” asked the serpent Chimera.

“For now, seeing as you are the leadership of the Chimeras, please each take one of these,” I tossed little earbuds towards their table, each of them catching one, “and if we need anything, you'll hear our voices come out of those. Don’t worry about charging them, we have that much covered. On %the first of every month in this time zone from nine to nine forty-five, be ready to speak with me. Outside of that timeline, I will only call if there are emergencies. Also, make sure that the people know about their arrangement with mankind. Well, I will take my leave now. Bye,” I left the room, sighing. “I am not ready for this…” I grumbled.

“You alright?” Asked Alaina, who was waiting outside of the door.

“I’m fine. You just know how I get a little squeamish in the face of authority. Over these ten years, that hasn’t changed. Even if I am of higher authority. Maybe those rioters ten years ago had the right Idea. I, the almighty leader of earth, has stage fright and is afraid of people with less authority than her. Doesn’t that sound kinda wrong?” I asked as we headed back to our dropship.

“Well, I guess so…” she agreed, admitting defeat.

We now were a third tier species. That meant that mankind would now have to start gaining territory. We would have to start gaining more and more territory, our amount of territory was simply shameful for a third tier species. We were a third-tier species now, we had to start acting like it.

On the first of May on the Chimera calendar at 9:00 P.M. I called the Chimera leadership. After making sure that the connection to all their earpieces was secure, then greeted the Chimeras. “Hello everyone, I truly apologize if mankind aren't the best at managing client species, this is the first time we’ve been a patreon species before.”

There was silence for a couple seconds, then what sounded like a snake Chimera replied to me. “You don’t have to apologissssse. We are at your command. This is an exsssstremely useful relationship for ussss. Nomatter how unreassssonable you may act, we will obey. I also assssume this will be a beneficial for humanssss as well, assss we know more about the galaxsssy.”

“Uh… well… we’re relying a whole bunch on you guys then. If you could send some of your engineers to earth to learn from our engineers, that would be great. Other than that, I would like to ask you about Chimeran affairs and what client species you have,” I said.

Over the next two hours, I was briefed on how much territory the Chimeras owned, as well as client species and those who lived as slaves to the Chimeras. As my first order of business was what I would soon be called, “The Chancellor.” I ordered the Chimera leadership to keep any slaves well-fed with plenty of water and given various hygienic materials to use. I also made the Chimeras allow each client and slave species to elect an ambassador every five years that would report directly to me, and they would do the same. I made it clear that everyone had a chance to vote for the ambassador of each species with no exception. There would also be no splitting of families or physical abuse of client or slave species. Similar to how slavery was abolished in America, baby steps had to be taken. Arrangements were made for all the ambassadors to be taken to earth within the next month by human ships. The next thing I did was make arrangements for humans to be integrated into Chimera fleets.

Within the month, the ambassadors had arrived on earth.

“So nice to meet you all.”