A/N: Of all the fics I have in progress and lined up, I didn't expect this one to be my first exposure into the Transformer's section. Just an idea that grabbed hold the other day, and wouldn't let go until I'd written it.
As this is a one-shot, I'd like to thank in advance everyone who reads, reviews, and favorites this story.
Swindle had calculated the value of every part of his frame. He had broken himself into his components, and those components into their base elements. He knew how much he was worth on Cybertron now and before the box. He knew his value in credits and shanix and quints and dalasi and som, and even a few Earth currencies. He knew how much he was worth on Monacus as opposed to Nuie, and how very little the Quintessons were willing to pay.
He knew that he could get the most for his laser core on Dormir; after that Cybertron. He knew that the base metals of his fuel tanks were more valuable than the tanks themselves. He knew where optic glass and wiring and a memory cortex would be worth more than his scatter blaster, and he also knew where the opposite was true.
Swindle knew how much he was worth as a whole mech. What the profits would be if he worked for a mob rather than himself. How much his talents were valued, and how they could be divided. He also knew, from experience and just a little research, what an event organizer would charge if he fought in the gladiator rings. How much he would be worth on the slave market, and how long he was likely to keep that value. How much he could make as a pleasure bot, either on his own or working for a house.
He knew the value of every part of his frame, together or in pieces. He knew his exact worth in any currency that mattered and a few that didn't. He could calculate how much he was worth now, or in five orns, or ten vorns.
And it didn't mean a thing because here he was worthless.
The conmech sighed, halfheartedly kicking at a piece of rubble and trying to ignore the various warnings on his HUD. Here was Chaar, a burned-out husk of what might've called itself a planet long before any of them had been sparked. Here was the last stand of the once-mighty Decepticons, now reduced to scraping by on scraps of Energon and infighting while they slowly starved. Here they had no hope of continued survival; just a long and torturous existence before they inevitably succumbed to cannibalism and starvation.
Here they were all worthless.
Swindle sighed again, wincing as his processor throbbed slightly. Yes, he knew his own worth. The problem was that he knew it too well. The values and calculations had become rote instead of active processing, and the profit computer installed from literally before he could remember was demanding input. He needed something to calculate. Something to break down into its components and those components into their elements.
He needed to know the value of something that wasn't himself.
Nearby, Vortex was scraping something into the ground with his tail rotors. Without a conscious thought Swindle immediately began calculating his teammate's worth. Visor, face shield, helm armor, chest armor, rotors...
A pause.
He didn't know what Vortex's rotors were made of. Thus, he couldn't figure out what they were worth.
A warning from the profit computer appeared in his HUD, demanding that the flow of data be resumed. Without the required information it would begin attempting to calculate the value of the worthless rocks and rubble littering Chaar's surface, most likely locking itself up and probably most of Swindle's processor as well. He really didn't want to be rendered helpless in a place like this, where it was very likely the dredges of fuel left in his tanks would be siphoned off before he hit the ground.
"Hey, 'Tex." His voice was a bit rough, and almost crackled with static. A couple of wires out of place, maybe, or rust was starting to develop. A point-two to six percent loss in the value of his vocalizer either way.
"What?" Vortex didn't bother to look up from his ground drawing. Like Swindle his voice had an almost crackle to it, though there was a distinctive wheeze from his vents as well. Filters were probably clogging up on the fine dust that covered most of Chaar. That was no good; they were probably only worth sixty percent of their original value now.
"What are your rotors made of?"
The interrogator paused in his drawing. The visor and battlemask prevented Swindle from seeing his expression, but he was sure that Vortex was grinning.
"You doin' that thing again?"
Swindle sighed. Sometimes he forgot just how long he'd been stuck with this particular team, and how many of his habits they had managed to pick up on. "Yes, I'm doing that 'thing' again." It wasn't like there was anything else to do.
Vortex just nodded, looking back down at his drawing and tilting his head like a critic in a fine art gallery. Several moments lapsed before he he wiped a pede across it, erasing the drawing and starting a new one.
"Steel an' composite structure," he finally replied. "Got nickle abrasion strips, though they're half gone from all this sand an' dirt."
Swindle just nodded, settling back to let the profit computer continue with its calculations. Moving from the rotors to the internal mechanisms, servos, wiring, tubing...
It was pointless, he knew. They were going to die on this husk of a shell of a former planet. Galvatron wasn't coming back. Astrotrain wasn't returning. They would run out of Energon, and then they would die. Out here they were all useless. As important as the remains of old buildings and rusted frames buried in the sands. There was no purpose, no reason for a conmech or a tactician or an interrogator or anyone else on Chaar. They were incidental, and in time would be as valuable as the rubble littering the ground.
Completely and totally worthless.