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He was aware from the time of his making that he was an anomaly.
The shuttle as a class was designed to be swift-moving and slow-thinking, powerful as any military model and gentler than most service models, suitable for hauling cargo or passengers.
This shuttle was designed to discover what would happen if a highly intelligent servitor was put solely to mundane tasks and was not taught. He knew his own origins. He listened, and he watched, and though his maker was aware that his experiment was far more intelligent than most of his make -- this fact was frequently retested thoroughly, and each time his maker exclaimed all over again at the rise in processing power -- he somehow failed to believe that this shuttle, kept in isolation to prevent accidental teaching from other servitors, utilized data.
And so this shuttle hauled, and he wondered. What about his wings made him capable of flight, and why was he faster than the standard models he saw sometimes? He thought about his design as it compared to their designs, their sleek four-wing design and his own wings swinging back over his frame, and contemplated how and why flight happened as he descended and opened his bay doors to permit small scuttling service models to enter him.
He thought about that for a long time, and about why sunset happened, and why the rain burned on his plating, and why he had to work to fly but did not need to work to remain on the ground. He wondered other things as well -- it was suitable that his maker take what was required of him, as it was his maker who had created him. The shuttle did not understand why other individuals of his maker’s type were also permitted to do so.
He already knew not to ask. The shuttle learning transgressed upon the terms of the initial hypothesis, and the consequences of such violations of the experimental design were quite painful. So he kept wondering.
It seemed improper, the shuttle thought. He owed the other beings of his maker’s type nothing. They had not made him.
He thought this as he hauled a load of something unpleasantly hot inside him. It dribbled, and he rolled to counter it, hoping the shift would make the dribble go back.
It made it go too far.
The shuttle scowled, not liking the unfamiliar sensation, and from sheer pique kicked his afterburners on and rolled all the way around.
The wind sang over his belly, and the shuttle laughed in sheer shocked delight at the scrape of the atmosphere over his nosecone, his wings. He had never done this before. Shuttles were not designed for such movements.
He already knew he was not a standard shuttle, he realized.
For the first time, the knowledge was only joy and sunlight on his underbelly, wind sharp on his wings.
His maker tested him thoroughly when he returned, curious and unimpressed as to the shuttle’s deviation from the usual protocol. No virus, no corruption in his coding was found. Running too much power through the shuttle’s circuits produced only the standard pain response. Running far too much produced only an equally standard offline.
When the shuttle rebooted, the process slow and more painful than usual, his maker was not there. This was not unusual. The shuttle did not regret his actions. He wanted to do them again, to know why speed felt so pleasant.
He looked up, watching the stars beyond the planet. He wanted to be among them, to travel, to learn and know and never be caged to his function again.
He had been given a form of address, suitable to record data by. He had not been given a name at his making. This lack was one of the many things he would address when he was loose.
I am, he thought, going to be one of those stars. I will be Skyfire.