Sea of Stars: Our Warships Block Out the Sun

Couldn't find any hard sci-fi books to read, so I decided to write one myself, heh heh heh. (The story starts by climbing the tech tree; it's not a brainless power fantasy.) From a planet's surface straight to the sea of stars. We set out in a small boat, and return with warships blotting out the sky. In the dark forest of the universe, we advance steadily with a flood of steel. We cooperate when cooperation is called for, and exterminate when extermination is called for. They see humans as terrifying bipedal apes. We call it efficiency.