Mutineers' Moon is a 1991 science fiction novel by American writer David Weber. It is the first book in his Dahak trilogy, and is available in the Baen Free Library. It was later republished in the Empire from the Ashes compendium. Plot summary The book’s premise is that the Moon is a massive space ship controlled by a self-aware computer that wants its rightful crew back aboard. Prologue The book begins with a prologue recording a mutiny aboard the planetoid-sized Utu-class starship of the Fourth Imperium (a more-than-55,000-year-old technologically advanced multi-star system empire), the Dahak, led by its Chief of Engineering, the ambitious and psychopathic Captain Anu and Commander Inanna. Anu's reason for mutiny is to lead his followers to refuge on a planet where presumably the genocidal wrath of the "Achuultani", a mysterious alien race that periodically exterminates all intelligent life it can find, which has also destroyed the previous three Imperiums and the dinosaurs, will pass over them. The loyal crew is taken by surprise, and unable to defeat the mutineers. Faced with no choice, the captain orders Dahak to execute "Red Two Internal"—a command which will flood the entirety of the interior of the vessel with deadly substances; this action will force mutineers and loyalists to the lifeboats, and the vessel will then, acting on other orders from the captain, allow back in the Dahak only the loyal crew and blow the mutineers into space. Red Two unfortunately entails the death of the captain as well; no one is unable to command Dahak to destroy the mutineers as they leave aboard warships, not lifeboats, nor undo Anu's systematic sabotage of the power generators, intended to kill Dahak by starving it of power and thereby rendering it open to conquest by Anu's forces. Unfortunately for Anu, Dahaks computer systems catch the sabotage before it utterly wrecks all the power plants, but the damage is so severe that it is forced to cease all communications and non-necessary expenditures of power. The damage takes decades to repair—by which point none of the loyal crew is still alive or able to contact the Dahak. Overpowered by the mutineers, the loyalists have been systematically exterminated. This places Dahak in a dilemma in which it cannot return to the Imperium as it has been ordered to, but nor can it exterminate the mutineers as other, equally important, orders dictate. This lasts for approximately