"Jazz?" I repeated in a whisper, still shivering. Compared to the others, this robot sounded almost…friendly. Like Beatus.

He bobbed his head. "That's me. Now…where are we, 'xactly?"

"Mars. At least, that's what Shockwave's minion Dirge said when he brought me here. But we learned in school that it takes months to get here, and we did it in two and a half days, so I don't – "

"Sounds 'bout right. The 'cons have a space-bridge near Mars." His metal face shifted into a frown. "But Shockwave? That ain't good."

I shuddered. "No kidding! He wants me to turn the station into a really giant robot."

"You?"

"He says it's 'cause my dad…" I paused, not sure how much I really could trust this guy. "…something. I didn't understand. But let's go before they come back!"

But the robot Jazz didn't move. "Sit tight a second, kid. Ya never told me your name."

"Daemon. Daemon Optimus Witwicky."

My heart thumped a half-dozen times as he just stared at me. Finally he said, "Your dad's name is Sam?"

"Yep. And my mom's Mikaela and my sister is Beatrice."

He snorted at that one. "Beatrice? Now who would she be named after?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind. It's what ya humans call a rhetorical question. Tell me, though, does your dad have a friend named 'Bee?"

I'd never thought about it before, but 'Bee… Beatrice… I looked at Jazz suspiciously. "How'd you know?"

His visor flashed even brighter blue, and the light was really bright in the dark cupboard. "Guess ya could say I'm a friend a' your family's, Daemon. Optimus and I go way back, same thing with Bumblebee. Then I met your mom and dad a couple a' times. And now I've met ya." He looked around and dared to peek out of the cabinet. "Jus' in time, too."

"Time to do what?"

"Get us outta here."

"But you're little," I complained. "You can't fight our way out."

"Who you calling lil', squirt?" he demanded, glancing back at me, but his voice sounded like he was having fun. "You're a human child, ain't ya? You a' all people oughtta know bigger ain't necessarily better. I'll sneak us both outside."

"We're in outer space!" I hissed. "I'll die!"

He slid out of the cabinet and then turned, offering me his open hand instead of just picking me up. "Come on, gimme a lil' credit. Ya flew here in some kind a' plane, right?"

I crossed my arms and glared at him. "One that was alive and could turn into a robot."

He pshawed. "That's nothing. You're goin' home in style, lil' Prime. I'll bundle ya up good an' we'll burn our way in as a shootin' star."

There it was again – Prime. And I hadn't told him the Decepticons thought I was a Prime, so why did he call me that? Frowning, I carefully crawled into his cupped hands and he held me against his chest. It was still open and I could still see the Matrix in it. "What is that thing, anyway?"

He glanced down at me and then at where I was pointing. "My spark. My soul, I guess ya'd say. An' the Matrix a' Leadership. It's what makes ya a Prime and made me alive. But ya gotta keep quiet if ya want me ta get us outta here."

"HOW? How can you get us out? And how come Shockwave's guys didn't find me?"

Jazz sighed impatiently. "Look, squirt. I been in tighter spots than this. Useful trick – I can shield my spark energy better than any other Autobot. Saved my aft more times than I can count, so I jus' did the same for ya and the Matrix. But we still need ta be careful 'til we're on the outside. 'Sides, we should have a lil' fun on the way. Wanna know what I did before I died?"

I stared at him, just…not wrapping my head around the whole 'before I died' part. Especially since he was being so casual about it.

"Saboteur," he said with a grin when I didn't answer.

It was the first time I'd ever seen a giant alien robot smile, and it wasn't much better than when they were angry. I had a feeling that things exploded when Jazz had that look.

"Ya know – sabotage? Gettin' inta the enemy's base an' ruinin' all their plans?"

"I knew it," I muttered. "You blow things up."

"Naw, that's Ironhide. I blow things up with style."

His hand moved, pushing me deeper into the spaces of his chest-plates, which were transforming to…make a leather seat like the ones in the front of a car. There were seatbelts and everything. Then glass slid forward making a kind of bubble that was half glass and half inside his chest. It was car glass – the bottom half had little stripes to defrost the rear window, and there was still a rear-view mirror attached in the middle of the top, front part of the bubble. It was scrunched, but when he lifted me up, I could squeeze in.

"Ya gotta trust me, Daemon, an' I'm gonna trust ya right back. I'm puttin' ya right next ta my spark. It's the safest place I can hold ya. That way, when I shield my spark, ya'll be shielded, too."

It was warm there, next to his spark, and I finally stopped shivering. "But what if something bad happens?"

"Then I want ya ta grab that Matrix an' run. But I'm tellin' ya now, Daemon Optimus Witwicky, today's our day. I'm goin' home ta my family an' so are you!"

He turned toward the center of the room, and I quickly buckled the seatbelts. The rearview mirror dimly glowed and words appeared on it. "I can see you, so just shake your head 'yes' or 'no' to my questions. Understand?"

I nodded, and the words on the mirror changed. "Did you come in through the door?"

I shook my head and he pointed toward the air vent cover. "Through there?"

I nodded and a smiling emoji flashed on the mirror. If I hadn't been terrified, I would have laughed.

"That's it, I'm making you my apprentice saboteur," he wrote. "Are you in?"

Since I couldn't say out loud, "Like I have a choice!" I just nodded instead.

"Excellent! So, up we get!" the mirror said.

I grabbed the seatbelts as he leaned forward and squeezed into the air vent, pulling the cover closed behind us. "See, bigger ain't better!" Jazz wrote. "So what are we looking at here? This station is supposed to come to life like you did to me?"

I nodded.

"Chances are better than even that it'll be a bipedal form. I wonder where on the body's frame we are."

I pointed to my gut, and Jazz's mirror shone with a toothy-grin emoji. "You don't say. Now how would you know that? Lucky guess?"

I wasn't sure how to explain Beatus the Friendly Voice in My Head without actual words, so I just shrugged.

"Well, you've trusted me quite a bit already, so I'm going to trust you on this one, Daemon Optimus Witwicky, my junior saboteur." He shifted his form into something that was as wide as a motorcycle but longer and with four wheels and rolled us cautiously forward.

As we drove, he typed, "I wonder if I can guess your age. Are you younger than 20?"

I snorted in laughter and nodded.

"Younger than 15?"

Again I nodded.

"Younger than 10?"

I shook my head.

"11?"

I nodded and the mirror displayed a birthday-cake emoji that made me laugh.

Jazz found one of those hand-panels and, without transforming anything but his arm, he reached out and pressed it to open the hatch.

"You knew Shockwave's name. Did you know about him before you left Earth?"

I shook my head as we rolled forward. Then I noticed where we were and I urgently patted the glass in front of me. We'd driven out onto one of the long platforms from earlier, the ones that ran between the bundles of wires.

"Problem?"

I scrunched my face, trying to figure out if it was or not.

Jazz drifted to a stop. "Nobody's around right now, squirt. Go ahead and talk," the mirror wrote.

"We're pretty much below the...the life place."

"The spark chamber?"

"Yeah. Two platforms up, I think."

"That gives me an idea," he said out loud. "Thanks for the tip. Ya got a good head on your shoulders if ya kept straight where we are in all this."

I smiled a little at his praise. He transformed back into his human-ish form and started climbing down. Just a handhold or two below the platform we were on, Jazz swung us along the bundles of wires, doing a much wilder monkey-bars job than I did. The mirror typed, "Gotta keep quiet again, so we're back to nodding. On Earth, did you know any of us robot alien types?"

I shook my head.

"But you've got the name 'Optimus.' Do you know a guy with that name?"

I nodded and bit my lip.

"He's important to your family?"

I nodded.

"Just a friend of the family?"

I quickly shook my head.

"Grandpa?"

I shook my head.

"Uncle?"

I nodded.

"Well that's a story I'm looking forward to hearing sometime. Are there any other humans with you here on the station?"

I shook my head, feeling with a sudden ache again just how far away I was from home and how alone I was. I blinked back tears, trying to not let Jazz see.

"What about 'bots? Anyone else friendly like me here? Bumblebee maybe?"

I shook my head.

He must have noticed how I was feeling because he typed, "Don't worry, squirt. I'm here, and like I said, we're blowing this popsicle stand. I'm living proof that today's your lucky day."

The thought eased some of the ache in my heart, and I kind of smiled at that. He was right. Between him and Beatus, I'd escaped from Shockwave, and Jazz seemed pretty confident he could get me home. Maybe I would be okay.

All of a sudden he swung to a stop and collapsed onto a bundle of wires. A weird symbol flashed on the mirror before it went completely dark. I froze, hearing my own heartbeat thundering in my ears. What went wrong? Did Jazz just die again? Did the Matrix thing run out of battery?

Then I heard the clanking of marching metal feet, and I realized why we'd stopped. Shockwave's guards. We must be near them. I sat perfectly still and tried to make sure even my breath was quiet.

They seemed to go on forever, but they slowly faded into the distance, and still we sat in the silence. Eventually, I whispered, "Jazz?"

The mirror came back up with the same symbol, but it was quickly replaced by writing. "Don't tell your dad I said that. Or Optimus."

Why would…? Oh. "Did you just cuss in robot?"

"Gotta be quiet again, squirt. Let's roll."

I'd caught him! This time I grinned as he began swinging along the wires again. After a while, he stopped in a spot that looked the same to me, but he was able to worm his way deeper into the wires and we crept into an even smaller tunnel on the other side. Wires ran along it, and Jazz had to transform into something even more stretched-out to fit.

He didn't ask me any more questions for a while, but when we came to a place where another wire-tunnel crossed ours, he paused and wrote, "The suit you're in – can it handle space-like conditions?"

I grimaced, remembering my terror at the thought of Dirge ejecting me.

"Is it pressurized and insulated?" he asked.

"I don't know what that means," I whispered.

"Does it keep you warm and and allow you to breathe in space?"

I nodded.

"Both?"

I nodded again.

"Okay. I need access to the station's specs. To get that, I gotta borrow somebody's console. It might involve some creative negotiating, so I'm going to have you step out for a few minutes to keep you safe."

Creative negotiating? Was he turning me over to Shockwave?!

"Calm down, little Prime." After a couple of heartbeats, he added, "Do you know what that word 'Prime' means to me?"

I shook my head.

"It means nobility and leader and best friend all rolled into one. I made a promise that bound me to your Uncle Optimus more than a hundred human lifetimes ago. I promised I would follow him as my Prime and even die for him if necessary. Optimus was my only Prime for all that time – until today. Now you're my Prime, too. I promise I won't be far away and I'll come back when it's safe."

When I still hesitated, he wrote, "I'll probably have to kill the 'con to get the access I need. They amputated one of my audials along with a few other bits and pieces that the All Spark seems to be taking care of – probably using my frame for spare parts – but they didn't think to take my daggers, so it'll be a piece of oilcake. Just in case things get a bit rough first, I don't want you in harm's way, though. Understand?"

I nodded, swallowing down the lump in my throat.

"Take the Matrix for safe-keeping. It belongs with a Prime, anyway."

I nodded sharply and picked up the Matrix with my gloved hand. Then Jazz released the seal on the glass bubble and my helmet closed up again. I climbed out into the cross-tunnel – it was so cramped that I couldn't stand upright and had to sit cross-legged on the wires. He nodded at me with an encouraging little smile and then worked his way forward.

Then I was alone again.

If we'd been in a place that had an atmosphere, I might have taken my gloves off and tried to talk with Beatus again, but I didn't dare here.

Before I could start to shiver, though, I saw Jazz's blue sunglasses coming toward me in the dark. (It kind of reminded me of the Cheshire Cat's smile from that old cartoon.) "Come on!" he hissed and disappeared again.

I followed where he'd gone and soon came to a hole in the side of the tunnel. I crawled through it into a room to find another robot sprawled out and unmoving on the floor in a puddle of green liquid. I stared in surprise – he had to be three times bigger than Jazz!

Jazz was working at a console, but he spared me a glance. "He woulda killed ya," he whispered in explanation, "so I had ta take him out first. Jus' keep the Matrix away from his spark chamber, yeah?"

"He's enormous," I whispered back.

Jazz gave me another cocky grin. "Bigger ain't necessarily better. But we gotta be quiet still. Up ya get."

He got me settled into my seat again, and the mirror kept a running line of text for me. "You think that guy was enormous? Check this out."

On the console in front of us, I saw a picture a lot like the one Beatus had put in my head of a…well, to be honest, the robot's shape reminded me of Godzilla. "This bad boy we're in right now stands almost half a mile tall. Can you imagine what he could do to a city like L.A. or D.C.?"

My jaw dropped.

"You saved a lot of lives by running away today, Daemon. I want you to always remember that."

I slowly nodded, not wanting the mental image of the titan tearing apart our apartment building but not able to get rid of it either.

"We can't leave this station intact and in Shockwave's hands. Even without a spark, it could do a lot of damage as a drone. Nope, we've got some work to do, my junior saboteur. But first, I should get downloading."

The words on the mirror flew past like a strobe light, and I looked away so I wouldn't get dizzy. After a couple of minutes, the light stopped flickering and Jazz quietly said out loud, "An' what do we have here? Shockwave's Guide on the Care and Feedin' a' Humans. Could be good for in-flight readin' and, slag the mech, it'll prob'ly even be useful. Which reminds me, Daemon. Ya hungry?"

I grimaced and dared to whisper, "Not if it's raisins or nutrition shakes."

"We'll hafta see what all we can manage. Better figure out which direction Earth is, too."

The mirror started flickering again, but after only a few seconds, Jazz stepped away from the console, climbed into the wire tunnel, and pulled the cover closed behind us. Several of those strange symbols flashed on the mirror as he crawled forward, and my heart started racing when I figured out why. We'd almost gotten caught. I wanted to ask how close Shockwave's guys were, but I kept my mouth shut.

Jazz moved so fast and the tunnels were such a maze that I lost track of where we were. I don't know how long it was before Jazz finally wrote to me again. "I've made them think you're headed toward the shuttle bay."

"We aren't going there?" I whispered. A shuttle might actually get me home!

"Nope. It's a false trail. See it's all about expectations, and they expect you're alone. And without me, a shuttle would be your only ticket out of here."

"So why aren't we going there?"

He wrote back, "Because now all the 'cons will be on that side of the station trying to keep you from outfoxing them again. I read the alerts, and I've gotta say I'm impressed, squirt. You're going to have to tell me later how you managed that escape. But in the meantime, that leaves the processor core vulnerable."

"What good does that do me?" I hissed.

"Oh believe me, it'll make this whole false trail thing worth it," he wrote. "Besides, I found where they've been holding out with dried mangos, freeze-dried ice cream, and potato chips. We're headed to the core now, and we'll stop for your snacks on the way out. But we're back to head-nods, okay?"

I nodded, frowning a little but not having much choice.

We crawled around in the tunnels for what seemed like forever. Jazz figured out he could give me multiple-choice questions with up to five answers, and I could answer with my fingers. He really had fun with that, asking about my favorite colors and foods, how many cousins I had, what I like to do for fun – everything and anything. It helped keep me from getting bored, and it was way better than coloring books!

Eventually, he wrote on the mirror, "Looks like they've got guards stationed in the hallway but none in the room where the core itself is stored. They've practically put out the welcome mat for you, squirt."

I wanted to ask why it was so important to get more computer access, but I wasn't sure if it was safe to talk with him yet.

The mirror continued, "I'm gonna have you step out again, just until I'm sure we're in the clear."

Taking a deep breath, I reached for the Matrix and Jazz popped open the glass in front of me, making my suit's helmet close.

Once I was off to the side, he crept forward and, after fiddling with the grate for a minute, lifted it into the room or closet or whatever it was. Slowly, carefully, he moved forward and disappeared into the darkness. Just a few seconds later, though, his blue sunglasses popped into view, and he waved me closer.

I crawled up to him, crawled into his open palm, and he slid me back into the driver's seat. Across the mirror, he wrote, "Buckle yourself back into my Autobot Baby Bjorn."

I mouthed "What?" and he replied with a laughing emoji.

We walked over to a console, and Jazz apparently had all the info he needed this time to log right in. He typed in the mirror, "You see, there are some files I wanted that aren't available to any old grunt. And there are some files this space station needs from me, just in case we aren't able to send it to the Well of All Sparks on our way out."

It was the first time he'd said anything that wasn't 100% sure we were going to make it, and it made my stomach lurch.

He must have noticed my grimace, because he wrote, "Don't you worry, squirt. This is just for insurance. It's like invoking Murphy's Law. Because we've planned for the worst, it won't happen. Femme Luck tends to smile on that kind of thinking. Won't take but a couple minutes to corrupt this would-be Decepticon with all my warm and fuzzy goodness."

I silently snorted despite the danger. Sure, he was warm and fuzzy – until he needed to stab someone to death!

"There," the mirror continued, "now we just need to pick up some snacks for the trip home. I think...loss of artificial gravity ought to make the whole thing go a bit more smoothly. Let's roll!"

But instead of making a break for it like I expected, he backed into the maintenance tunnel and pulled the grate closed behind us. He rolled backward until we came to a cross-tunnel where he could turn around. Then we were speeding forward as fast as the bumpy wires would let us. I began to feel like my teeth were going to rattle out of my head.

Across the mirror, he wrote, "And 3...2…1!"

Even though I was strapped into my seat, I suddenly felt like I was floating. Instead of rolling, Jazz almost swam, pushing himself forward from handhold to handhold. We were moving so fast I got kind of dizzy after a few minutes, but at least it wasn't bumpy anymore.

"And bingo!" Jazz wrote, slowing down and making a hard left. "Shockwave's just a smidge too predictable. He must have never figured out this was the failpoint the last time I blew up one of his power plants."

I blinked, trying to wrap my head around Jazz knowing Shockwave that well.

"Here to here, cross this connection," Jazz wrote as he worked, "and let's see, Earth is that way, so we'd better make sure the pressure release hatch that gives is on the opposite side of the station. See, my junior saboteur, it's not enough to create the explosion. The job ain't finished until you come home. Gotta make sure a successful escape is part of any plan."

Right. Because I would for sure need to remember all this the next time I had to blow up a space station.

Alarms started going off, and Jazz wrote, "That oughta do it. Now to pick up some snacks for the show."

After swimming forward a while, Jazz slowed to a stop at another grate. On the mirror, he wrote, "Gotta stay really quiet, okay? Everyone's on the look-out now."

I nodded, and he silently moved the grate aside. We crept out into the hallway, which was huge compared to the tunnels we'd been wandering around in all day. A little ways ahead, at an intersection with another hallway, I saw brightly-colored potato chip bags floating like a school of fish. Above it, a net floated, too, and Jazz's mirror displayed a string of laughing emojis.

"Ah," he wrote a second later, "there's our Decepticon. Taking a page outta my book and hiding in the maintenance tunnel above the crossroads. We can't let him report that I'm alive because then the whole gig is up, and we gotta be quick. Hang on tight, and do me a favor: close your eyes."

I frowned, not wanting to miss anything, and he added, "I mean it."

I huffed and closed my eyes, but after a couple of seconds, I opened them again, mostly because I couldn't feel which way was up with the gravity turned off, and I started getting dizzy.

I was also just in time to see Jazz rip the grate free with one hand, yank the Decepticon from his hiding place, and throw him toward the floor. The other robot pushed off the floor, turning to face us, but Jazz's blades cut his head off before he could do anything else. Then Jazz snagged the net and used it to scoop up a bunch of food before swimming away. Start to finish, the whole thing had been less than twenty seconds.

He flashed a frowny face on the mirror. "You were supposed to have your eyes closed."

I whispered back, "I was getting dizzy and figured you didn't want me throwing up on your spark."

He flashed a puking emoji but didn't write anything else. I guessed that meant he agreed with me. We ducked into another tunnel, but only for a few minutes. This time, when he opened the hatch at the end of the tunnel, we crept out onto the surface of the space station. My breath caught at the sight of the stars – no matter what happened next, I was free.

Jazz walked across the station's skin, and this time his voice came through on speakers next to me. "Right 'bout here oughta do it." Then he transformed down into a form I hadn't seen before, one that was a solid metal bubble that cut off my view of the stars. "See, my junior saboteur, for every action there's an equal an' opposite reaction. That's physics, an' I'm about to give ya a lesson ya'll never forget."

"What do you mean?" I demanded.

"This space station still has a power core, even if it ain't alive. In about fifteen seconds, it's goin' ta blow up an' take every mech inside with it."

"What about us?!"

"We gonna be snug as a bug in a rug for the whole thing," he assured me. "I got some cool electromagnetic tools in my bag a' tricks. We're dressed up like an asteroid an' built just as tough. We're magnetically latched onta this piece a' shieldin'. When the station blows, we're gonna surf toward Earth. Now hang on, things are about ta get a bit interestin'."

I grabbed the seat belts that still held me in place, and then it sounded like Jazz was driving us through a hail storm. I got dizzy again, almost like I was flipping loop-de-loops on a roller coaster. For a few terrifying seconds, I thought maybe I would actually throw up and be floating in my own puke for the whole flight home. The wave of nausea went away, though, and I took a deep breath.

"Ya okay, lil' Prime?"

"Yeah," I said, still trying to breathe right. "What happened?"

"Here, let me show ya." His rearview mirror lit up again, this time with a little drawing of a space station. "We were here," he said, and a little red dot lit up on one side. "The station's designed ta let a little energy go free if it starts ta get a buildup. That all goes through a bunch a' plasma pressure release valves. It's like openin' a can a' soda. As long as ya don't shake it, the pressure gets loose when ya pop the top – no problem. Ya follow me so far?"

"I think so."

"Well, we shook the can. An' then punched one little hole in it. I disabled all the pressure valves but one, and that one was over here." A white dot lit up on the drawing exactly opposite from the red dot. "When the station blew, it also shot us toward Earth. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction."

"Wow!" I said, and I meant it.

Sounding proud of himself, he said, "I processed the whole thing when I saw the station's design."

"So what's next?"

"Next? Well, next ya get your victory chips! An' some ice cream an' dried mangos. An' I'll see what I can do with Shockwave's research on humans. I'm worlds faster than any human-built spacecraft, but it's still gonna take a while ta get ya home. We might need ta get a bit creative before we're done."