Sassinak is a science fiction novel by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon, published by Baen Books in 1990.It is the first book in the Planet Pirates trilogy and continues the Ireta series that McCaffrey initiated with Dinosaur Planet in 1978. McCaffrey wrote the second Planet Pirates book with Jody Lynn Nye, the third with Moon.The novel features the personal battles that Sassinak must wage within herself and the determination she develops to rid the universe of the scourge of piracy.