Beacon

It was so strange a realization that it took him four more of his dwindling minutes for his logic processor to raise to his attention the chance that he could survive: he couldn’t aim himself, but he could calculate a trajectory for Earth’s solar system and then engage his warp drive when he was aligned in the right direction. He would almost certainly lose consciousness from the strain on his battered frame, but his engines would deliver him to the target once engaged. He needed only set a simple distress beacon broadcasting on the general channel, and the others would find him.

[...]

Then he was turning away from it, towards Earth, and as the glow rose up around him, he engaged the beacon, and flung himself into warp.

[...]

“I can understand that sentiment,” Optimus Prime said. “But unfortunately, you’ve landed right back in the middle of it here. You’re in our base on Earth. We picked up your distress beacon a couple of days ago, and Cosmos was able to retrieve you—but he just barely beat out Astrotrain to your location. So the Decepticons know we got you, and they’ll probably assume that you’re one of us, now.”