"In the face of danger and the willingness to lead when no others could, for trusting your feelings and allowing everyone to do their part when possible I hereby promote you to the rank of Freshman Sentinel, may you execute the duties of your new station faithfully"

"Thank you Mr. President I am honored by a promotion that happened when I was just doing my job as a Jedi and what I feel is not rightfully earned"

"Ah but you saved several lives by keeping a cool head and you found out about them being Force Sensitive, not many others would be able to keep calm, even though only you and other Jedi can tell if someone is Force sensitive they might still panic, or even worse not be able to do much because of the planet's Force sensitivity"

They eventually make it back to the Texas and it's quite obvious that Ashland was given a promotion due to what she did in the line of duty, because she didn't know it but before the explosion her actions for the rest of the crew that had been with them saved their lives and they requested a posthumous promotion for Ashland for her actions in saving their lives which the President granted, and then simply gave her her rightful promotion when it was discovered she was alive

"Welcome back everyone, it's good to see you again, I actually fainted when I heard that you were alive, because I thought my orders had killed you"

"No Captain, you couldn't have known about the rebels in fact we didn't know until we woke up in what was essentially a dungeon and the Ministers people revealed themselves"

"Wait so the Ministers own cabinet was in on everything?"

"Yes they were"

"OK you were right we couldn't have known, but what's this I have heard about the planet's people being Force sensitive?"

"Yeah, I didn't notice it until I focused on why I was tricked by them that I found out"

"Very well then, now come on we have a mission to accomplish, oh and Sentinel, you'd better contact the Jedi Council because they were told you were dead and I don't think anyone has told them otherwise yet, so you take care of that now and then report to sickbay, Doctor Kohler needs your help with a few things including the bacta"

"They still can't figure that out?"

"Well, it's more like the bacta tank that's the problem"

"Oh, that can be finicky if you don't know what you're doing, okay I can do that, anything else the doctor needs me for?"

"Just the tank, but she also wants you to re-certify as a field medic just in case"

"Fine, all Jedi are field medics anyways, the healers are the experts in regards to the act of healing but we need to be able to take care of each other and others if something happens in the field so I'm fine with her checking to make sure I can still do that"

"See you at a later date, but remember you should contact the Jedi Council first due to you being declared dead a short while ago"

Ashland quickly contacts the Jedi Council and explains the error in declaring her dead which they easily accept because it was indeed quite natural to be deemed dead if their life-signs were masked and there were no other Jedi on board to sense her Force signature. She then went to sickbay so that she could help the doctor with the bacta tank and re-qualify as a field medic which actually did take all her shift because it turned out the computer was continuously marking the tank as a foreign system and wouldn't cooperate in keeping the tank functional

"Okay I think I know how to get the tank to work, when did you get this anyways?"

"Two days after you were declared dead, we were scheduled to get the tank a week after you were declared dead but they moved it up after that incident so that if there were any serious injuries we have a chance to save their lives if at all possible"

"And it hasn't worked since?"

"Well it's more of a we have the tank then the system crashes and the tank doesn't work, and that just continued until you just stated you can get the tank to work"

"Okay, oh and once I get the tank fully online I will test to make sure I still qualify as a field medic"

Portland does indeed qualify as a field medic and soon enough she and a few others were on a peaceful expedition mission on a newly discovered planet that as far as they could tell didn't have any people living on it, unfortunately that didn't mean it wasn't without life, because the animals were very dangerous and she and an Ensign who had split up from the main group ran into major trouble. Ashland fell down a steep cliff barely managing to grab the edge

"Ensign Lockland I need you to take this back to the rendezvous point, if there is no one there you are to contact the ship yourself and get this to the Captain"

With those words she hands over her lightsaber and then loses her grip falling into a deep chasm. The Ensign went back to the rendezvous point and was indeed alone

"Ensign Lockland to the Texas one to beam up"

He is quickly beamed back to the ship and then does something that doesn't make sense seeing as how no one knew about the orders Freshman Portland gave him

"Computer location of the Captain"

"The Captain is on the bridge"

Lockland goes to the bridge and goes right to the Captain's chair

"Captain, per my orders given to me by Freshman Sentinel Portland I have something for you"

He holds out his hands and the Captain takes the object from the Ensign

"Portland's lightsaber, how did you get it?"

"She gave it to me sir, right before she fell down a chasm, she ordered my to return to the rendezvous coordinates and get the weapon to you sir"

"Captain, she may yet be alive, Jedi can survive things most people can't, at least that's one of the stories I've heard"

"Quite correct Commander, let sickbay know to have the bacta tank ready, meanwhile Lt. Parker will take a security team and Ensign Lockland will take them to the location where he last saw Freshman Portland, Lt. Parker make sure you have climbing equipment, it sounds like it will be needed"

"Understood sir"

They quickly get a team together and Ensign Lockland quickly gets the team back to the chasm where Portland was last seen, they get down several feet when they finally reach Ashland. The field medic of the team checks her to see if she was alive and got a pleasant surprise

"Lt. Fong to the Texas"

"This is the Texas go ahead Fong"

"Two to beam directly to sickbay"

The two quickly disappear in a transporter beam while the rest of the team climbs back up to the top. Meanwhile in sickbay on the Texas Fong and Portland wind up in the center of sickbay where Fong quickly transfers Portland to a bed

"She needs medical attention badly"

"First let's stabilize her and then get her into the bacta tank good thing we had it ready ahead of time just in case she was alive"

They quickly stabilize her and then transfer her to the bacta tank

"Now all we can do is wait and see"

Several hours later the Captain came down to sickbay to check on Portland

"How is she?"

"She can still go either way sir, like I told the Lt. earlier all we can do is wait and see, that she's still alive is a good thing but right now we're currently going hour by hour, which is slightly better than going minute by minute"

"Keep me posted on her condition, what about the rest of the original away team?"

"They're fine, a little surprised at how bad off Portland is but physically they're okay, though you might want to talk to the team leader, he's blaming himself for deciding to split the team up into smaller units and sending and Ensign and the equivalent of a Lt. Junior Grade off into the wild alone"

"How long will she be in the bacta tank?"

"I have no idea sir, right now I feel that's the only thing currently keeping her alive"

"Do you know if she ever went into a healing trance?"

"Sir, she wouldn't have had time to go into a trance"

"What do you mean?"

"Sir from what I can figure out she was unconscious the moment she hit where she landed, she's lucky she isn't dead right now, now then I can't tell if she's in a coma or not but what I can tell you is that if we had waited even half an hour longer for any aspect of the sequence of events she would be dead right now and only the Probation Sentinel's would be left and they're still in their first year of training"

"How long until you know anything more definitive?"

"Right now I simply don't know sir, I can't do anything other than monitor her and make sure she's still alive" (sighs) "I think if she makes it past a week we should be good but I simply don't know, maybe the Jedi council will know something I don't but unfortunately right now I simply don't have access to them due to the fact that we're still working out the system bugs on how contact with them works, who has priority when, and if we'll be able to simply access a single section that specializes in something and we need that for whatever reason. If Portland were awake we'd have no problems because as a Jedi she has to be in contact with the Jedi council at a moments notice even all the way out here while she's acting as a Starfleet officer"

"Maybe I might be able to get you access to them through the fact that I am currently the only Captain who has a Jedi on board their ship, thus there's bound to be things popping up that I might not know off hand and there's no information in the database that covers the situation, like right now"

"Is that part of what took you so long to come down here sir?"

"Yes, and don't worry I figured you wouldn't really have time to look up information that the Republic and Jedi council sent seeing as how you've had to be really careful in regards to Portland's care, so I decided to do some research for you so that I could help if possible"

"Thanks for the thought sir but I think what I really need right now is a Jedi healer...or as good as one, tell me do you know of any Betazoid doctors or Vulcan healers nearby?"

"I'm not sure, but Vulcan's are touch telepaths they wouldn't be able to do much in this case seeing as how they are separated by glass"

"Except that I've discovered even when unconscious, Ashland constantly sends out a slight Force signature, I don't know if that's something she trained to happen or if it just naturally happens to her but if the Vulcan's touch the glass they should be able to reach her, at least that's the theory"

"We'll see if your theory pans out at another date, in the meantime I'll check on trying to find a Betazed doctor, even if it's not one affiliated with Starfleet they should be willing to help. I will also see about getting you in contact with a Jedi healer"

"While you're doing that I think I'm going to get some sleep everyone here knows to call me if her vitals change"

For the next several days the Doctor and Jedi council talked back and forth while Ashland remained unconscious in the bacta tank