Posleen War: Sidestories The Tuloriad by John Ringo, Tom Kratman

lost. We overran the majority of their sole planet's surface, killed five sixths of their slow-to-replace population and we still fucking lost.”
    Tulo saw two thousand yellow eyes open wide in shock. Whatever the massed kessentai had been expecting, losing a war was probably the last thing they considered even theoretically possible.
    “Anybody know why? Don't be shy; this isn't a test and I won't have you killed for a wrong answer.”
    Still, there was no answer. Tulo wasn't surprised. This group had never seen Earth, that hateful ball of green and blue. Latecomers, fleeing various orna'adars, and hoping for something better, they were caught in space and their fleets crushed without ever even knowing about it.
    “Fine. Either you're too stupid to have an opinion or you're bright enough to know when you don't know. I can work with this, I suppose.”
    Tulo saw better than eight hundred crests automatically erect themselves at the insult. Good. Let the cameras record that. Those who erected are probably the stupid ones. Those who didn't will be an even split between the very bright and the very non-aggressive who probably ought to throw their sticks.
    “In any event,” Tulo continued, “we lost for a number of reasons. But the biggest reasons were that, as a race, we're fairly stupid. Oh, yes, we are. Goloswin, step forth.”
    Lowering his shotgun a few degrees, but no more than that, the tinkerer took a step forward on the platform on which his stood. The mass of semi-captive kessentai turned their heads as one to view this oft spoken of brilliant one.
    "What you see before you, kessentai, is the only one of us, among scores of millions that once were, who was capable of technological innovation. Among our enemies, beings like Goloswin, as capable as he, were nearly as common as nestlings.
    “Thank you, Golo,” Tulo said. The tinkerer stepped back and resumed the steady aim of his shotgun. “Binastarion, step forth.”
    That kessenalt did, but unlike Golo his shotgun remained steady-aimed, despite being held by only one claw. Since the thing was unloaded, Binastarion made up for that with a more fierce demeanor. About a third of the mass of kessentai standing on the deck shuddered. These were the ones who had been given their initial examination by Binastarion and had seen him or his AS order the ruthless butchery of any number of their fellows for failure of his very high standards.
    "Binastarion was a brilliant war leader, by our reckoning. I have studied his campaigns myself, both on the planet of the humans and those he fought earlier, elsewhere, as orna'adar descended upon the world of his birth.
    “But among the humans, his kind are commonplace. Indeed, even their nearest equivalent to the normals are capable of occasional brilliance on the path of fury. How many of our kessentai are?”
    Tulo let the question hang for a moment, before continuing. “We lost . . . friends . . . because we are neither bright enough, nor generalistic enough, to match the humans. They are almost as clever as the crabs, almost as brave as ourselves, almost as sneaky as the Himmit, almost as ruthless as—or maybe more ruthless than—the Darhel, and almost as industrious as the Indowy. They are generalists and because of that, they are generally better than we are.”
    “So let me tell you what I propose and, after I do, if those who object will please line up to my right where you can be killed without too much fuss, I will work with whatever is left . . .”
    Apparently Binastarion and the others had chosen well. Only one particularly stupid kessentai took Tulo's invitation to suicide. That one had been seized, bound, dragged to an air lock and spaced, while all the crew witnessed his rapid decompression and explosion on the view screens.
    This did not mean that all the remainder were equally happy.
    And yet what can I do about it? wondered the recently awakened Finba'anaga, as he fitted a plate to an interior