"New Hope to Captain Anderson"
"This is Captain Anderson go ahead"
"Captain, Sentinel Portland just had a seizure, blood work shows that somehow her food was contaminated with a poison that reacts to chamomile, thing is Portland wouldn't have known about the poison interaction or even that she had been poisoned until she drank chamomile tea in the Republic because this toxin is more common in the Republic then it is in the Federation"
"So someone in the Republic wants her dead and knew about chamomile then"
"Not quite, because the poison is designed to interact to several different triggers that are common in the Republic as well, for all we know they didn't know about Federation foods that it could react to"
(Sighs) "I see, guess we'll have to do the tests another day then since the poison tainted the results"
"Yeah, we've drugged her and will keep her unconscious for at least two days to make sure that the poison is flushed out of her system, once she wakes up we'll tell her what happened and have her do tests at a later date. Captain did you guys have tainted food as well?"
"Not sure, best get checked out though"
"Agreed, because this could have been an attack on the Senate since the poison only entered her system about two hours ago"
"During lunch...yeah we're going to get tested"
Turned out that the lunch everyone had was indeed poisoned but fortunately no one had eaten or drank anything that the poison reacted to since that time so everyone was given the antidote with no ill effects. Meanwhile Portland was in a drug induced coma to give her body a chance to recover from the poisoning but only because the medics weren't sure if it was safe for Portland to go into a Healing trance already exhausted from lack of sleep, the doctors also decided to test a few more things about Portland and her abilities as a Sentinel in regards to healing through some blood work that they took about every two hours while she was in the coma. The reason behind this was that ever since Portland had revealed herself as a Jedi all those years ago a theory had been presented that Sentinel's burn through certain drugs faster because of the Force thus the reason why some drugs don't work at all while others don't keep a Sentinel down for as long as they're supposed to without a stronger dose that would be considered lethal to some races, but they had never tested that theory because they deemed it unnecessary but now that Portland had almost died because of poisoning they had to know such things so that they could tailor treatment's for Sentinel's a lot better in situations like this
"I get the feeling that we're still missing something important in regards to Sentinel treatment but we won't get anything until Portland wakes up"
"And since we're keeping her unconscious for another day that might take a while"
"And I don't think she'll be happy about the fact that the testing was interrupted because of the poison"
"I really don't want to know what she has to say to that"
"We might find out anyways you know"
"Yeah I know, what about the fact that in five years we'll be at war with the Federation?"
"I don't know, but I do know that the Republic will do their best to get everyone free once more because that's the main reason we'll be fighting the Federation, the fact that it's not free"
"We still have a little under five years before we officially go to war, who knows there's a chance that war might not happen if Starfleet regains control fast enough"
"No we're headed to war alright, that was set in motion when the refugees started arriving"
"But still five years for a fledgling resistance to get started?"
"Yes, because it didn't take the Rebellion long to truly get started once people started to get organized into a Rebellion in the Republic"
"But because of how big the Federation is our people will slowly build up in secret"
"Plus it will take a while for bases to actually start up and we need intel on those bases if possible"
"True enough, but at least we know of two bases to take down"
"Yeah and those two might have the most security"
"Yeah, we will have our work cut out for us"
"In the meantime we're on standby around Coruscant so that Portland can make recommendations once she's awake"
"How many planets will we need again?"
"At least one maybe two, we don't quite know yet how many planets we'll need but the groups will definitely be diverse"
"And we'll also have to think about food supply as well"
"Portland knows what to factor in for everyone in regards to what's needed and what's impossible"
"What about the Dominion? I know for a fact that there's no way we'll be able to provide the Jem'Hadar with ketracel-white"
"The Dominion is being locked down via bombs on the wormhole apparently"
"Maybe some of the Federation will go there then"
"Most likely, and they'll also probably be doing things to help but they won't be active either except on occasion until five years from now"
"Well for now we have work to do and also hope Portland wakes up soon"
"Don't worry she should wake up within two days of ending the sedation we've been forced to use on her. If she doesn't then we've got problems and will have to take drastic actions"
"Like what?"
"The carbonite freezing in a bacta tank, but only after putting her into stasis"
"Is there an official name for that process?"
"No no one can think of a name and if someone does they're to alert Starfleet via the message things"
"Oh makes sense then"
Two days later Portland was awake and not happy about the test being interfered with but she understood why medical intervention had been needed
"Looks like I'll have to wait another day to test the blend"
"Sorry Portland, that would have been good information for us, but um we do have some questions in regards to Sentinel's and their healing abilities"
"Like what?"
"Why didn't you go into the healing trance as soon as your body discovered the poison and also why didn't you suspect poison until you drank the tea?"
"There's two reasons, as for why my body didn't detect the poison until it was too late is that the Force doesn't work that ways, we need symptoms more often then not to discover we've been poisoned. As for why I didn't go into the healing trance, well that's a bit more tricky and it goes into the fact that not only am I a Sentinel but also a Starfleet officer. I could have gone into the trance immediately but I decided not to go into the trance just in case others were poisoned as well, and while I was drugged the Force actually somehow managed to talk to me and revealed that a healing trance wouldn't have been effective this time"
"Okay how did the Force talk to you when you were sedated?"
"I have no idea, except that it might be part of my Force trouble indicator abilities"
"Well, there are several other questions about Sentinel healing but those can wait another day"
"The Jedi Council wants a report from you as soon as you feel up to it so that they know you're okay and also to see if there are any new missions for you"
"Got it, and why didn't you request the information from Jedi Healers in regards to what a Sentinel needs or does to heal?"
"Because we've discovered over the years that Starfleet Sentinel's bodies change ever so slightly during their four year training period, we theorize that it has to do with the warp cores of the ships but we're not completely sure about that, for all we know it could be all the inoculations you guys need we just simply don't quite know the truth. The very slight change means any information about Sentinel's is useless coming from a Jedi Healer"
"How slight is slight?"
"About a .5 percent change"
Ashland meditates on this and discovers it was actually a combination of inoculations and the warp core combined that changed the Sentinel's because the Sentinel's were more sensitive to even slight radiation emmiting from the warp core