Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars - I

Close to noon, the Father Sun baked pungencies out of turf and turned the forest that walled the northern horizon into a wind-whispery surf of leaves and shadow. An unarmed human vessel was set upon by a warship from the planet Kzin, home of the fiercest warriors in Known Space. This was a mistake. Kzinti learned the hard way that the reason humanity decided to stop studying war was because they were so very good at it