The damaged thirteen starships slowly moved through space as they headed for Starbase 211. Captain Allensworth stepped onto the bridge just as Hoshi's station started beeping.

"Sir, we have an incoming transmission from Starbase two eleven. It's Admiral Tracy."

"I'll take it in my ready room." The captain said as he walked across the bridge to his ready room.

Allensworth sat down and activated his console. A screen slid out of the table and the blank screen changed into the face of Admiral Tracy.

"Admiral."

"How are you and your crew holding up?"

"Not too bad considering we ran with our tails tucked."

"Thirteen ships made it out. What happened?"

"Well Admiral, it happened like this…"

FLASHBACK

Sparks shot from consoles as the Alexandria struggled to get her shields up.

"Lock on to the nearest Terran ship and fire." Allensworth ordered.

Fulks did as he was told. The nearest ship was a Defiant class starship. He came swooping in firing its pulse phasers. The shields of the Alexandria took multiple hits but returned fire with its own phasers. The Defiant class ship maneuvered around its very large opponent and positioned itself behind the port nacelle. It opened fire on the nacelle.

"Fire aft torpedoes."

Three torpedoes fired from their aft launcher and struck their opponent. The Defiant class ship exploded into a ball of flames. The Alexandria's next target was an Akira class ship.

The rest of the Federation fleet had also begun returning fire against the Imperial fleet. The Austrailia, and Oregon teamed up and took out an Imperial Galaxy class ship while the Ambassador Class USS Zhukov wheeled around and fired at the nacelles of the mirror version of another Ambassador class. The nacelles blew out and then the Zhukov aimed its phasers at the bridge, thus destroying the Imperial starship.

"Well done, Mister Osgood." The Captain said.

"There's another ship bearing on us. It's the ISS Enterprise."

"Evasive mane…"

The mirror version of the Federation Flagship opened fire and destroyed the Zhukov. It turned around just in time to see the Nebula class USS Endeavour come in firing its weapons. Both ships took damage but it was the Enterprise that came out on top. Its next target was the USS Ajax.

The USS Solent swung around and fired phasers and photon torpedoes at its Excelsior class opponent. The USS Berlin came in to help and the two ships destroyed the Imperial ship. Suddenly, the Berlin erupted into a ball of flames and debris. Another Imperial Intrepid class ship flew through the debris. The ISS Voyager turned its attention on the Solent and the two locked themselves in battle.

"Status report." Allensworth said.

"The fleet is taking heavy casualties. We're down to sixty-two starships." Merriell said.

"Damn, we've lost half of our forces. How many ships do they have?"

"One hundred seventy."

"Order all ships to retreat."

Seconds later, the acknowledgement came through.

"All ships acknowledge, sir." Hoshi said.

All of the Federation ships turned and left the battle scene.

The mirror Picard stood on the bridge and watched the leaving Federation Starships.

"Where in the hell do they think they're going?"

"Daniels, lock targets on any ships of your choosing and fire the transphasic torpedo. Also, send a message to the other ships to fire their transphasic torpedoes and also I want to leave thirteen starships. I want them to go back to Starfleet Command and tell them what happened today."

"Aye, sir."

The ISS Enterprise as well as the other ships of the Empire fired multiple transphasic torpedoes. Each torpedo struck a different starship and each torpedo punched through their shields and slammed into the hull. Some torpedoes struck the bridges of the ships and others hit the engineering sections. Each ship exploded into a massive explosion. Two other ships were caught in the explosions and they too exploded.

"We're down to thirteen ships, sir." Merriell said.

"GET US OUT OF HERE NOW!" Allensworth ordered.

The remaining ships leapt into warp, leaving their opponents victorious.

Allensworth pressed a button on his command chair's arm. "All senior officers report to the conference room."

As soon as he lifted his finger to clear the intercom, another voice came in.

"Plumley to Allensworth."

"Go ahead, Doctor."

"Sir, request permission to remain in sickbay. I'm needed down here."

"Of course, Doctor. We'll fill you in later. Allensworth out."

Minutes later, all of the senior officers sat in the conference room with the exception of Doctor Plumley.

"What the hell happened on that last attack?" Allensworth said.

"They used transphasic torpedoes." Merriell said.

"I'm not too familiar with the specs of the transphasic torpedo." Hoshi said.

Merriell looked across the tableto Hoshi.

"The transphasic torpedoes generate a destructive subspace compression pulse. Upon detonation the torpedo delivers the pulse in an asymmetric superposition of multiple phase states. Shields can only block one subcomponent of the pulse. The other subcomponents deliver the majority of the pulse to the target. Every torpedo has a different transphasic configuration, generated randomly by a dissonant feedback effect. This was used at first to prevent the Borg from predicting the configuration of the phase states." Merriell said.

Hoshi was impressed that Alex could recite that from memory.

"We originally got the specs to fight the Borg but it would appear that we'd have to start using them against the Empire."

"Why didn't they use them from the start?" Nycz asked.

"Probably because their ships don't have enough to take out all of us." Fulks said. "They probably wanted to wait until he gained the upper hand before they got desperate to use them. That would explain why we're still here."

"They allowed us to live." Sparhawk said. "They could've easily destroyed us but they didn't and it's not like they didn't have the means to."

"Why didn't we use ours?" Hoshi asked.

"Because we want to keep this ace in the hole as long as possible. This was one thing the Borg hadn't adapted to and we use them as a last resort." Zofchak said.

"But this is war, and they aren't the Borg and they used the torpedoes on us so why not use it on them?" Hoshi asked.

"Because the Borg have a tendency for showing up unannounced." Allensworth said. "We don't want to waste our compliment of transphasic torpedoes on the Empire and then get attacked by the Borg sometime during this war." Allensworth said before looked to his chief engineer and changed the subject. "How's Engineering?"

"We're fine down there. It was a mess but we've got things back together. We could go another round right now if we wanted to."

Allensworth nodded. "Good. We're headed to Starbase Two eleven and we'll figure out what to do next from there. If they're no further questions, dismissed."

The senior officers stood up and left the conference room.

END FLASHBACK

"What is the current status of the remaining ships?" Admiral Tracy asked.

"Including us, the Solent, Crazy Horse, Malinche, Budapest and the Appalachia are repaired and ready to go while the remaining seven are still in need of repair and still need time before they are to do anything else."

Tracy nodded. "I'm assigning your ship and the other aforementioned ships to rendezvous with the sixth and seventh fleet that are moving towards your position as we speak. The other ships are to stay on course and arrive here. Once you rendezvous, you are to take command of the combined fleet and head back to Betazed. The Imperial forces won't expect us to retaliate so soon."

Allensworth nodded. "Aye, sir."

"Good luck, Captain. Tracy out."

The Admiral's face was replaced with the Federation logo. Allensworth stood up and exited his ready room.

"Captain." Sparhawk said as he entered the bridge.

Allensworth looked at him and saw his first officer nod to the screen. Allensworth looked and saw the sixth and seventh fleets.

"Send a message to the remaining ships of the ninth fleet and tell the Solent, Appalachia, Budapest, Malinche and Crazy Horse to join this fleet while the others are to stay on course to Starbase Two eleven."

"Aye, sir." Hoshi said.

The remainder of the ninth fleet split up. Seven stayed on course while the other six joined the other fleet. The Alexandria took the lead position and led the fleet back to Betazed.