It's the cruise liner used by the united nations as a floating administration centre (each time a country is "liberated" by the UN or USA, it's usually needed whenever "rebels" destroy the most important government facilities and power supply while retreating, because parking a mobile admin centre off the coast allows the UN to help the country's economy to get going quickly again.)

Here it's under heavy guard in East Timor, although I've also spotted it in the background of other media pics related to Afghanistan and Kuwait - and in each country, the old counterfeitable currency was replaced by new encrypted notes to help stop terrorists from being able to print their own money.

So putting two and two together, I couldn't help but wonder how much money it must have on board and how much mischief a bunch of do-gooders could get up to in robbing it (in the interests of world peace, of course!)

Image Two

The maintenence platform used by Ratface to smuggle Jayson Locklin aboard. Have u noticed the inspiration for this sub-plot actually came from a different ship? The blue hull gives it away. But nearly every large cruise liner has one of these to help with minor maintenence while the ship is travelling between ports.

Obviously, I couldn't get on board the "real" ship for security reasons, so this is actually the stern (back-end) of the Pacific Sky, the luxury cruise liner that I *was* able to get aboard for a few days, and therefore provided most of the inspiration for the internal descriptions of decks on "The Lady Peacemaker." And okay, I admit it: I wasn't too happy about boarding her in the beginning. I'm terrified of the ocean. (At least I USED to be, until I forced myself to take a trip on this ship!)

Talk about torture! (NOT!) Five course meals every day, perfect weather and luxury to die for. After all, my characters all travelled first class, so naturally I was forced to travel first class too so I'd be able to describe their journey's accuractely... And being an author who's known to write at any time of the day or night, I needed a whole cabin to myself - which made a family cabin rate about $1000 cheaper than paying for two single beds in one cabin. So naturally, my husband and two sons were forced to endure the torture of a pacific cruise with me... and with three extra research assistants on board, we certainly managed to get into all the nooks and crannies.

Image Three

Somehow I managed to get 126 pics of lifeboats during the cruise. (Obsessive? Moi? Never! hehehe.) Here's one of my favourites: A crewman performing the daily safety check (right outside my cabin window).

Note the semicircles painted onto all of the bench seats. These are to show passengers where to put their bottoms in the event of evacuation, but unfortunately you do NOT get one semicircle for each cheek!

The young deckhand pictured is also the inspiration for the character of Lennie Hagan, who had a wickedly dry sense of humour and recommended that due to cramped spaces on lifeboats,in the event of an emergency, you should abandon your partner and stay close to someone very skinny who smells nice.

Image Four

Here's one of the luxury shopping areas on board "The Lady Peacemaker." Pretty scary to think of what could happen to all that glass in the event of a major shake-up at sea...

And as it turned out, a commercial was being filmed on the same cruise with olympian swimmer Lisa Curry-Kenny, so while 1500 passengers danced around the pool deck to be on tv with her in the hopes of winning another cruise, my family were at the nose of the ship, experiencing the terror of having an entire ship shake and bump as if hit by a major earth tremor! So when you read that scene in Project Apocalypse, you'll know where the inspiration for that came from too!