Void Veins: The Forbidden Ascension

Chapter 54: Heist in the Night Sky

Ironhold Military Airfield occupied the city’s northern edge, ringed by tall watchtowers, enchanted detection wards, and patrol drones that hummed like mechanical sentinels above the perimeter. Yet Ratna knew: every fortress, no matter how well guarded, has one vulnerability that cannot be warded or enchanted away. People. And people can be distracted, deceived, or persuaded to look the other way.

That night, heavy clouds draped the sky—a natural cloak of darkness that swallowed stars and softened every shadow. Ratna, Goran, Elara, and Krog slipped through a crumbling section of the rear fence, moving low and silent. In hand they carried a salvaged signal jammer from Kael’s lab, its faint violet glow disrupting motion sensors and silent alarm wards as they passed. Elara scaled the west watchtower unseen, spliced into the data junction box, and disabled the visual feed—creating a three-minute blind spot in the security net.

“Three minutes,” she whispered, dropping lightly to the tarmac. “No more. We move now.”

They sprinted across the open stretch to the main hangar, its high arched doors standing half-closed in shadow. Resting inside, massive and imposing, was The Iron Wing—a heavy-lift military airship, property of General Tormund, one of the Shadow Council’s most loyal commanders. To steal it was no mere theft; it was a declaration of open war.

Goran swung his hammer against the side-service door; the lock gave way with a ringing crash that echoed through the vast, empty space. The ship loomed before them—streamlined hull painted gunmetal grey, twin steam-arc engines silent but thrumming with latent power, propellers motionless beneath the arched roof.

“Krog—help me with the manual control panel,” Ratna said, climbing the boarding ramp toward the cockpit. “Elara—hold the entrance. Goran—be ready if guards break through.”

Krog wrenched away the protective iron plating with his bare hands, exposing a tangled nest of ignition wires, pressure valves, and backup conduits beneath. Ratna’s fingers flew across the circuit board, rerouting fuel lines past locked security protocols, hotwiring the emergency starter system—years of scrapyard ingenuity and street-learned cleverness working faster than thought.

Outside, sirens began to wail. The patrol had spotted the breach.

“They’re here!” Elara’s voice cut sharp and clear. Three enchanted patrol drones hovered into the hangar bay, their energy coils glowing bright as they charged.

Elara’s dagger took the first drone straight through its optical sensor; it spun wildly into the wall. The second fired—a bolt of crackling blue energy that Goran caught on the flat of his hammer, the impact driving him backward, skidding across the metal floor. The third locked onto Ratna in the cockpit.

“Ratna—hurry!” Krog heaved a scrap of iron plating at it, missed, and the drone’s cannon flared.

Ratna did not hesitate. She hauled the master ignition lever all the way forward. The ship’s engines groaned, shuddered, then roared to life—a deep, resonant thrum that vibrated through the deck. The massive overhead propellers began to turn, slowly at first, then faster, whipping up a gale inside the hangar.

The third drone fired the instant Ratna slammed the cockpit canopy shut. The bolt struck dead-centre, webbing the reinforced glass with cracks like a shattered spiderweb—but it did not break through. Military-grade shielding held.

“Get aboard!” Ratna called over the external speakers.

Goran and Krog scrambled up the lowering cargo ramp. Elara, quick as a shadow, bounded onto the port wing and slipped through a narrow side vent just as the ship began to rise.

The Iron Wing lifted vertically, smashing through the hangar’s corrugated iron roof, shards of metal and timber raining down onto the runway below. Searchlights swept upward from the towers, stabbing through the cloud cover—but the airship was already climbing fast, angling away into the dark, gaining distance with every second.

They were gone. They had stolen one of Ironhold’s most powerful warships.

Ratna let out a long, shaky breath, wiping cold sweat from her forehead. She set their course northeast, toward the distant peaks where Fengshui lay hidden. Two days’ flight if they held true—two days during which Valerius could do anything, could move anywhere.

Then something pressed warm against her chest. The book pendant hummed again, stronger than before, steady and bright. A message from far deeper than thought: I am holding on. Find the answer. I am waiting.

Ratna smiled, resting a hand on the ship’s vibrating dashboard. “Hold on, Lin Ye. We’re coming.”

Behind them, Ironhold glowed like a counterfeit constellation—bright, ordered, false. But out here, above the clouds, another light was rising: fragile, unquenchable, and real.

The journey to Fengshui had begun. And with them, carried through the night sky, went the last hope of a soul still fighting to be free.