"Seeing your expression was thanks enough, sir… And if you're ever in the neighborhood, feel-"
"Yes of course, because the Alpha Site is right around the corner from the White House!" he teased her.
Sam laughed openly at his remark, "With our technology, it almost is sir! But, seriously, if you're ever in Colorado, we might be able to work something out."
"Don't tempt me Colonel! I might ask to become rated in one of these and then Jack would have to look for another Vice President!" he laughed.
"Yes sir," she smiled as she led them over to the other flight pair.
"So what'd you think Agent Cross?" Robbie yelled.
"I'm glad I got the opportunity sir," he offered.
The Captain piped up, "Sir, he thinks we're all crazy!"
The Agent's eyes went wide, "Sir, I-"
Robbie laughed, "Relax Cross… If you think flying one of these was crazy be glad I still don't fly for the Navy… Crazy is trying to land a jet on a lily pad in the middle of the ocean at night with fifteen foot squalls."
"And I bet you miss it sir," Sam stated.
"Hell yes!"
Twenty minutes later they were exiting the locker room. "So where can a man get himself some chow?"
"Captain, would you mind taking the Vice President to the commissary?"
"Not at all, ma'am… If you'll follow me sir."
Robbie stared at Sam, "You're not going to join us?"
"Actually there's a few things I wanted to check on in the lab," she told him.
Robbie shook his head, "Did you eat lunch?"
She stared at him as he continued with his odd questions, "Yes, sir."
"What'd you eat?"
"An apple, sir."
"That's it?"
"I wasn't hungry," she told him as she realized she felt like she was being questioned by General O'Neill.
He shook his head, "Come on. You're going to join us for lunch and tell us about your work on the Stargate Program."
"Sir, I-"
"General O'Neill told me I would have to look out for you," he told her sternly.
"He what?"
He shrugged his shoulders, "He asked me to make sure you ate one good meal while he was gone."
Her eyes went wide, "Please tell me you're kidding sir?" He smiled back at her. "This is so embarrassing," she mumbled as she led them to the commissary.
"So Colonel, how were you able to design a program for the Stargate when you didn't quite know what it was capable of?"
"I only worked on it for two years before we got it to work. But work on the Stargate had been going on for fifteen years before Daniel figured out the chevrons and what they were exactly. We didn't know that it created a wormhole until after we connected to Abydos the first time, sir. Most of the key understanding of the Stargate didn't take place until the year following the first mission."
"Yes, but you still had a dialing program operational before then," he pointed out.
"Yes, sir. That took a lot of work from a lot of people," she replied humbly.
"How did you interface the computers with the Stargate without a… what's that thing called?"
"We call it a DHD – Dial Home Device. Sir, are you sure you really want to know how? It gets pretty technical."
"I think you've been hanging around General O'Neill too long Colonel. I studied electrical engineering remember?"
She lowered her head and smiled, "Yes sir. Well you see…"
And for the next hour she continued to explain to him how they had MacGyver'ed a computer system for the Stargate, the programs she had created to account for spatial drift, and the iris she had helped design.
"My God! You're a genius!"
"Hardly, sir!"
"Have any of your plans to save the planet not worked?" he asked her.
"Actually sir, some of them haven't worked."
He stared at her wide eyed. He then leaned over conspiratorially, "I don't know if you've noticed, but the planet's still there!"
She chuckled, "Yes sir. But you asked me if any of my ideas hadn't worked, and some of them haven't."
He leaned his head back, "But Plan B, C, or D worked?"
She shrugged her shoulders in response.
He turned to the Captain, "See! A genius! Could you come up with three back up plans if your first one failed?"
He shook his head, "Not when the fate of the planet rested on my ideas, sir."
"Thank you very much Captain!" he replied.
"Lt. Colonel Carter, please report to Laboratory 3 immediately! Colonel Carter report to Laboratory 3 immediately!"
Sam looked up at the loudspeakers that bailed her out of the humbling accolades coming from the Vice President. "Sir, if you'll excuse me?"
He smiled at her, "Yeah of course, I'll see you later."
"Yes sir," she told him before turning and heading to Laboratory 3.
TBC