Chapter 5: Peanut Butter and Jelly

Amy froze up when the woman walked into the room. Not out of fear so much as nervousness – she had no idea what was happening, where she was, or why her head had started throbbing. Amy was only vaguely aware of Pleakley and Jumba backing up as the woman approached the small cot Amy was sitting on, and placed something in front of her.

It was Amy's suitcase.

"Amy Johnson, welcome aboard the main battleship of the Galactic Armada. I am CIA Agent Crystal Venom." The woman said calmly, opening Amy's suitcase. "I have inspected the contents of your bag and found nothing that could be a potential threat to the Galactic Federation, so you can have it back. However," she removed a bottle from the bag, "You've been out for quite some time, and according to the schedule on this you should have taken one of these pills over an hour ago."

Amy blinked, trying to organize her thoughts, before realizing what the bottle full of pills was. "My multivitamin," she mumbled, and the woman handed her the bottle. Amy was somehow able to calm down enough to open the bottle, remove one vitamin, swallow it, and close the bottle again without spilling the little blue and red pills everywhere. Almost immediately, her headache started clearing up – she chalked it up to some sort of withdrawal symptom. Her mind started racing as soon as it could coherently think again – Armada? Galactic Federation? CIA? My DNA- wait, what was that agent's name again?

"You are to report to the front of the ship as soon as Professor Jumba has determined that you are stable. We have no idea what DNA you might have running through your veins, and we don't want to take any risks," Agent Venom said as she walked to the doorway. "When you are ready, an escort will be sent so you don't get lost and end up in the same room as some of our more unsavory passengers. Convicts, criminals, you've watched sci-fi movies, haven't you? You've already heard this before on TV." With that, she left the room.

"… I don't watch TV," Amy said after the woman was gone. She jumped a bit when she heard Jumba clear his throat.

"Now then," he began, "we will be needing to take small blood sample in order to scan DNA. You are familiar with having blood removed, yes?" Amy nodded as he removed a needle from a nearby drawer. "Very good. This will only sting a little…"

Amy had honestly been surprised when Jumba had been able to carefully remove blood from her arm without any trouble – those huge hands were much more precise than they appeared. After successfully removing a needle's worth of blood and giving her a Transformers Band-Aid to put on the spot on her arm where he'd drawn the blood, Jumba proceeded to perform test after test after test, checking for everything from cold symptoms to radioactivity to potentially explosive properties. The process seemed to take hours, and it was within the first thirty minutes that Amy found herself reading through the boos she'd packed in order to calm her nerves, as well as pass the time. Pleakley had left by that point. The minutes dragged on as she listened to machines clicking and beeping, liquids bubbling, her Ipod playing Kelly Clarkson's "You Found Me" for the Nth time while on Shuffle, and Jumba muttering things like "Very peculiar" and "Interesting" to himself as he watched the different vials. It was after three hours that she heard what sounded like a guttural snarl, making her look around from where she sat on the cot in a panic. It was only after she heard it again that she realized what it was – her stomach.

"Um… professor Jumba?" Amy asked quietly as he examined a vial of green liquid. "Is it okay if I eat in here? I'm kinda hungry…"

"If white-haired girl has food, then eat, so long as I do not end up having to clean big mess." He answered without turning around to face her. "Yes… very interesting… not so brilliant as my own experiments, but still very well-synthesized…"

Amy sighed a bit when she realized he wasn't paying attention any more. She'd gotten over her initial fear by now – he was more interested in studying her blood than attacking her. She rooted through her bag before finding the lunch she'd packed earlier for the plane she'd expected to ride on – a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich. Another growl made Amy realize that she really was hungry…

It was just as she was about to take a bite that Jumba spoke. "Test results are complete. While white-haired girl composed of many different DNA samples – did not know I had some of these samples – you are very much stable. I will contact the front deck and request escort to captain." He then walked over to a button on the side of the wall, and pressed it.

"This is the captain," a deep baritone suddenly spoke from what seemed like an intercom system.

"Yes, this is Jumba. I have determined that white-haired girl is stable and is safe for her to land on Planet Turo when we arrive. I am requesting escort to front deck."

"Excellent. The escort will be at the lab within the next ten minutes," the captain answered, and the intercom turned off.

"You hear that?" Jumba asked, looking over his shoulder at Amy, who still hadn't taken a bite of her lunch. "Get things packed up, white-haired girl. Escort will be here quickly, we do not want captain to wait more than necessary."

Amy nodded, and quickly put her books back in the suitcase after setting the sandwich on top of the plastic bag she'd wrapped it in earlier. She worked quickly, and all of the books were put away by the time she heard footsteps at the end of the hallway. She got off of the cot, lifted up her suitcase with one hand, and her sandwich with the other. She turned back to Jumba. She wanted to say something, perhaps thank him for… something, but no words came, and he was already absorbed with his work again.

"Goodbye," she finally said, and stepped out of the room.

The hallway stretched in both directions, and the footsteps echoed in a way that made it hard to tell where they were coming from. Amy looked to her left, and even after waiting a moment, saw nothing.

"You're Amy, huh?"

Amy jumped a few inches in the air upon hearing somebody speak behind her, and let out a small squeak before whirling around and clapping a hand over her mouth to face the one who had addressed her. She was only somewhat surprised when she saw he was another alien.

The first thing Amy noticed was that he was a few inches taller than her, probably 5"8 or something like that. The second thing she noticed was that he was covered in light honey mustard-yellow colored fur, with a lighter lower jaw and belly. He had black eyes, two teeth that stuck out over his bottom lip on the opposite sides of his mouth, ears that hung down on the sides of his head, and three antenna-like things – she couldn't tell – sticking out of the top of his head. He was a bit pudgy around the face and had a bit of a stomach, but he looked strong – very strong.

Amy suddenly realized she was staring at him. "Oh! Oh, yeah, I'm Amy," she said quickly, hiding the bottom half of her face with her sandwich. The alien smiled, and held out his hand.

"It's about time I metcha, been hearing about this new human on deck for hours. I'm the one who's escorting you to the front." Amy took his hand, and he gave it a friendly shake before letting go and putting his hand back into the pocket of the cargo pants he was wearing. "Galley Officer Reuben, at'cher service. Say, is that peanut butter an jelly?"