A group was taking a bus tour of Ireland. As was usually the case, there was one person who complained the whole time. She would say things like, "This food is awful!" or "Doesn't the sun ever shine here?" And so on. She always had a negative comment. The tour guide had the patience of a dozen Irish saints -- he always managed to keep the group's experience from being diminished. Since it was along the way to their next stop, the group decided to stop at Blarney Castle. Two employees from the castle were at the tour bus before it could open its doors. The guide met them and talked to them in hushed tones. The employees went back to the castle and the bus doors closed. The guide faced the group. "I'm sorry, Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, "but I've just been informed that Blarney Castle is closed for cleaning today -- " "Of course!" the complainer interrupted, "And I'm sure that stuff about kissing the Blarney Stone is a load of -- " "Ma'am," the guide calmly replied, "I've been told that, if you kiss someone who has kissed the Blarney Stone, you can get good luck." "Oh? And I suppose you're telling me you kissed the Blarney Stone?" "Oh no, ma'am." the guide sweetly replied, "But I have sat on it." This week's prompt: Blarney Make Irish eyes smile by responding!

Okay, I've tried to incorporate the Blarney and the implications of the punch line of this joke into my response. Apologies to any natives of the Emerald Isle if I've used too many cultural stereotypes. "I hate to have to be the one to break this to you," Jason drawled, "but April Fools' Day isn't for another couple weeks yet." Zoltar, who was about to launch into one of his trademarked maniacal laughing fits, paused with his mouth half-open. Security Chief Anderson, who was leaning against his desk while the G-Force team stood in the centre of the briefing room, angry gazes fixed on the big tele-comm screen, hastily smothered a snigger and refrained from saying, "Oooooh, burn!" He had an image to uphold, after all. As it happened, Keyop stepped up to the plate: "Oooooh, burn!" G-4 declared, grinning. Zoltar recovered and opted for a sneer instead of the aborted maniacal laughing fit. "I do not know of this 'April Fools' Day' of which you speak," the penultimate ruler of all Spectra (along withits numerous slave planets, asteroid mining outposts, euphemistically-named 'client' worlds and other areas where the Spectran hegemony held sway) said, looking down his long nose at the screen. "Your words are meaningless, G-Force. Soon, Dublin will fall to me!" "I wouldn't tick the Irish off if I were you," Mark said. "They have this thing about kneecaps..."* It was Princess who brought the conversation back on track. "No matter what you do, Zoltar, we will stop you!" "But while you're there," Jason added, "be sure to try the Guinness!" Zoltar's image winked out as he cut the connection. "Okay," Anderson said with a shrug as the team turned back to their mentor, "looks like you pissed him off." "Yep," Mark said. "He tends to make his best mistakes when he's annoyed." "Well," Anderson said, gesturing toward the door, "what are you waiting for?" Pausing only long enough for a salute and a cry of "G-Force!" the Federation's elite strike force ran from the room. Anderson watched them go, then returned to the big chair behind the desk and sat down. He opened a channel to Nerve Centre. "Zark," he said, "I want you to analyse the ambulant propulstion systems on Zoltar's new ship and give me a report ASAP." "Yes, sir!" the robot replied. "That giant Leprechaun won't stand a chance against G-Force!" Anderson leaned one elbow on the desk and rested his chin on the heel of his hand. "Probably not," he agreed. "Sometimes I swear the deadliest thing about some of Zoltar's weapons is the irony." Tiny Harper often maintained that it would be quicker to fly around the Earth at sublight speeds rather than wait for the clearance required for a short intra-atmosphere warp hop. Admittedly, warping within a planetary atmosphere was diabolically dangerous, but it was also effective, especially if you had the right equipment on board. "Force fields engaged and in the green," Princess reported from her station. Tiny cross-checked the readings on his console. "Confirmed." He read out the navigational coordinates. "Cross... checked. Confirmed," Keyop said. "Do it," Mark said. "Engaging warp drive," Tiny said, and firewalled the levers. There followed a brief moment of disorientation, a bit like a whole-body funnybone smack, a strange sensation of being stretched thin like a rubber band, and the Phoenix was cruising straight and level over southern Ireland. Tiny consulted the readout. "We're over the Galway coast," he announced. "Setting course for Dublin." Mark got out of his seat and stood next to Tiny's chair. "Let's see if we can catch ourselves a Leprechaun," he said. "After we... whip Zoltar'," Keyop said, "can we... go see... Blarney Stone? Not far... by air." "Why not?" Jason drawled. "Might fix your stutter." Keyop shot a mutinous glare at Jason and opened his mouth to offer a rebuke, but Mark held up a hand. "Cut it out," he said. "Jason, that was uncalled for. Keyop, let's just get the mission over with before we start planning any post-mission tourist trips, okay?" "Ladies and gentlemen," Tiny said, "please return your tray tables to the upright position and fasten the seatbelts we don't have. If you'd care to direct your attention to port, you'll see that the giant Leprechaun looks just as freaky in person as it did via tele-comm." "I still can't believe he built that," Princess said. "Maybe it's proof that he does drugs," Jason quipped. Mark stared at the enormous Leprechaun laying waste to O'Connell Street. It had almost reached the General Post Office building. Jason leaned foward and peered at the screen. "Magnifying the image!" he snapped, fingers flying over the keys at his console. "Holy cow, there are people down there! I thought the city was evacuated!" "Get its attention, Tiny," Mark ordered, then hung on to the headrest of Tiny's command chair as the Phoenix banked and entered a steep descending turn. "It's the Gardai** Jason said, shaking his head. "They're standing around the statue of Chuculainn*** and they're armed with handguns!" "Jason, Princess, Keyop, get down there and protect those cops," Mark said. "I'm taking the jet to see if I can distract that oversized elf." "Technically --" Jason began, but Mark was already running and was out of earshot. "Some other time, then," Jason said, and headed for the nacelle bay where his car was docked. The giant Leprechaun paused in its progress and straightened up, head tilting upward as it tracked the G-Force command ship and the Sonic Jet that separated from the tail section and arced around toward the enemy. .../2

"Ah, G-Force!" Zoltar said. "Here you are at last to taste defeat at the hands of my finest weapon yet!" "Sire!" Commander Pfez said. "They're firing on us!" Private Ing whimpered and consulted the readout on the screen in front of him. "Hull integrity holding," he reported. "For now," he added under his breath. "Did you have something to add, Private?" Pfez snapped. "Nothing, sir!" Ing declared. "Sneezing, sir! Allergic to something in here, sir!" As Pfez turned his attention back to the tactical display, Ing sighed and muttered, "Allergic to G-Force," but this time, nobody heard him... except perhaps the Tuatha De Danann. Mark's lasers and shells were having little effect, their energy absorbed and distributed by the Leprechaun's armoured skin. Irritated, Mark guided the little fighter in closer. He was expecting the giant hand to swing around in a swatting motion and was ready for it, executing a quick barrel roll which sent him hurtling under and around the enormous green-sleeved forearm. The proximity alarm screamed as one wingtip scraped perilously close to the Leprechaun's force field, then Mark veered away with an impudent wing-waggle, daring the giant to engage in pursuit. As the Leprechaun began to turn away from the pillared Post Office building, Mark smiled to himself. "Predictable as always," he muttered. "You're probably foaming at the mouth right now, aren't you, Zoltar?" "Oh, Spirit," Ing whispered to himself. "Lord Zoltar's foaming at the mouth. That's never a good sign." Dying heroically in battle to save a national monument had seemed like a good idea at the time, but all the same, the dozen or so Guards at the Chuculainn Monument breathed a collective sigh of relief as the enormous, insultingly stereotypical Leprechaun lumbered back down O'Connell Street after the G-Force fighter jet. "Looks like it might not be our day to die after all," Sergeant Dynan said. "I dunno, Sarge," Garda Hanlon said with a frown. "That thing put its foot down awful close to Madigan's Pub, just now." There were general mutterings of concern among the Guards. After all, pubs counted as national monuments, in a way. The G-2 and G-3 vehicles raced after the Leprechaun while the G-4 flew along in the giant's wake, jets screaming. "Hey, Jase," Princess said, having opened a comms channel. "What was Mark saying about knees, earlier? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Beneath his hawk-billed visor, Jason smiled the smile of a predator as he gazed upward at the point where the Leprechaun's green breeches met its white stockings. "I do believe I am," he said. "Skipper, you listening in? How's about you and I hold this thing in position while Princess does her thing?" "Sounds like a plan," Mark agreed. "Keyop, you stay put and be ready to warn us if that thing twitches the wrong way, okay?" "Big ten!" Keyop said. He worked the controls of his buggy so that the little vehicle hovered and the capacious mouth opened. Keyop then made a few menu selections and made himself comfortable, one gloved finger poised over the firing button as he kept his attention on the giant Leprechaun. The Leprechaun swatted and grabbed at the G-1 jet while t he G-2 vehicle literally ran rings around its feet. Behind the Leprechaun, Princess' Galacticycle tilted backward, revealing the nosecone of a surface-to-air missile. "Let's see how you like being kneecapped," Princess said, and smiled as the system locked on. "Get ready to move, boys," she said, and depressed the firing button. Princess hung on to the cycle as it was pushed backward by the rocket exhaust. She lowered the vehicle and drove out of the cloud of smoke, accelerating as the missile struck home. The Leprechaun wobbled and sank to one knee. "Love your work, Princess," Jason said. The Leprechaun was down, but it wasn't out. From under its hat, the giant culturally-inappropriate android withdrew a disc which unfolded itself into an enormous bodhran.**** The double-ended drum-beater emerged from the creature's right sleeve, and in a kneeling position, the thing began to beat the drum in a lively rhythm. "Clear the area!" Mark ordered as the first waves of sonic energy hit. The Sonic Jet pitched down and Mark fought the controls. He straightened out a bare metre above the road surface and skimmed over debris before climbing back up toward the Phoenix. Princess cried out as the sound waves hit and the Galacticycle wobbled dangerously. She skidded to a stop and dismounted, clutching at her helmet. Likewise, Jason wrestled with the wheel as the G-2 was impacted. The rear of the vehicle lifted off the road and it slewed into a pile of rubble. Jason swore and hit the steering wheel with his fists. Keyop, who was in position behind the Leprechaun, was largely protected by the bulk of the artificial homunculus. "Show you... who's boss!" he declared, and hit the firing button. As the bomb tumbled free of the G-4 buggy, Keyop closed the mouth, turned his vehicle around and made best speed back toward the Post Office. As he approached the group of Guards, he activated the loud speaker in the little machine. "Take cover!" he managed to cry out, and the Guards did so, ducking down behind Chuculainn, who, as it turned out, was their best hope. Keyop's bomb obeyed the instructions Keyop had programmed into it. While it looked like a comic book bomb, an oversized petard with a fuse sticking out of the top, its appearance was deceptive. Its laser guidance systems propelled it to its target. As Keyop had intended, it lodged itself in the folds of artificial fabric that made up the back of the Leprechaun's breeches, where it exploded. "YES!" Keyop yelled as the Leprechaun toppled and fell flat on its face. "KISS MY ASS, ZOLTAR!" Keyop's triumph proved to be slightly premature, however, as the Leprechaun's green Jacobean hat launched itself skyward and disappeared. Security Chief Anderson kept his expression stony as he paced the length of the Centre Neptune briefing room. "You kneecapped it, then you blew up its... ah... backside," he summarised. "Zoltar got away," Mark said, clenching his fists at his side. "I kicked ass," Keyop said. "Why is it," Princess hissed, "that you never stutter when you're swearing?" Keyop shrugged. "It's... a gift," he said with a winning smile. "Blarney Stone... didn't fix after all." "The main thing is that you neutralised the threat and you saved the Post Office and the Chuculainn Monument," Anderson said. "Well done, team. Dismissed." The G-Force team filed out of the office. Anderson waited for the door to close and for the sound of running feet to disappear up the companionway before he sat down at his desk and laughed until his sides hurt. *Shooting people in the knees was a favoured form of non-lethal punishment among Northern Irish paramilitaries during the troubles. The practice was known as 'kneecapping,' and is a thoroughly nasty way to get your views across. The practice has been used by the Italian Red Brigade, Palestine's Hamas organisation and more recently, the Bangladeshi Police. Don't try this at home. **The Irish police. A bunch of Gardai standing in front of the Chuculainn statue with nothing more than sidearms in a doomed gesture of defiance isn't beyond the realms of possibility when one considers the strong streaks of romance and fatalism that run through the Irish soul. The Gardai don't usually carry firearms, but when under attack from an enemy from 'beyond space,' they would have signed out some guns. Interestingly, An Garda Siochana translates to 'The Guardian of the Peace,' and they're headquartered in Phoenix Park. ***A great hero from Irish mythology. ****An Irish hand-drum, pronounced, "BOW-ron," with the 'ow' as in 'cow' and a touch of a roll on the 'r.' Yeah, I know.