Black wind

vehicle,” Morgan barked, silently dreading the thought.
    If Dirk and Summer were in real trouble, he knew they had only a matter of minutes, not hours. Their chances of rescue would be as slim as a dime.
    “Okay, Summer, hold the take-up reel.” Dirk had positioned Snoopy near the top of the hangar ceiling a few feet past the compressor when he gave the command to Summer. She pressed a button on the console that stopped an automatic spool from reeling in the ROV’s power cable. Dirk gently moved the ROV back toward the compressor, watching the cable slacken beneath it. Like an anaconda coiling about its prey, he carefully manipulated the ROV in a circular motion above the compressor, letting the slack cable wrap loosely around the protruding handle. After dancing the ROV around and around several times, he successfully engineered five loops about the handle, which he tightened by drawing the ROV up and away.
    “Okay, activate the take-up spool and I’ll pull with Snoopy!” “That compressor must weigh three hundred pounds. Even underwater, you’ll never budge it,” Summer replied, wondering if her brother had lost his mind.
    “It’s not the compressor I’m after, it’s the handle.”
    Toggling the ROV’s controls, he increased the power to Snoopy, now pointed in the direction of the submersible. The ROV surged forward until its power cord tightened around the metal handle. Its small thrusters churning the water, the little ROV fought to move forward but could not muster enough force to budge the handle. Then Summer joined in, reeling in the other end of the cable with the automatic take-up spool until the cord went taut around the base of the handle. Though both ends of the handle were now being yanked at, it was the lower end snagged by Summer that did the trick. The boxed end of the metal bar slid off the sprocketed knuckle that turned the flywheel and the whole handle slipped free of the compressor, gliding through the water toward the Starfish. Dirk carefully dragged it in a horizontal position, so as not to lose his coiled grip, and gently tugged it to the front of the submersible.
    “I don’t think Ryan is going to appreciate how you’re treating his ROV,” Summer said with feigned concern.
    “I’ll buy him a new one if this works.”
    “And what exactly is it that you have in mind?” Summer asked, still not sure of his intent.
    “Why, just a little bit of leverage, my dear sister. If you’d be so kind as to grab my newfound crowbar with the left mechanical arm, you’ll see what I mean.”
    Dirk guided the ROV close to the left side of the Starfish, towing the handle with it. Summer then activated the controls of the left mechanical arm and opened its clawlike hand. Working in unison, they brought the two devices together until Summer could securely snatch one end of the handle with the vise-strong claw. Dirk then slackened the ROV cable and slowly backed Snoopy away, unraveling the cable off the free end of the bar. Once clear, he activated the cable spool up and returned Snoopy to the Starfish, securing the ROV in its cradle.
    “For a beagle, Snoopy makes for a pretty good retriever,” Summer remarked.
    “Let’s see now if our mechanical arm can make for a good floor jack,” Dirk replied.
    His eyes studied a row of battery ampere gauges on the submarine’s control panel. They had spent more than an hour operating the ROV and their power level had been drained to barely thirty percent. Time was running short if they were to have any hope of making it back to the surface on their own.
    “Let’s do this on one try. Purging tanks,” he said, pushing a pair of buttons that pumped water out of the ballast tank in order to increase buoyancy. He then powered up the main thrusters to the submersible. Summer had meanwhile brought the mechanical arm around the front of the Starfish to its full dexterity and studied the position of the wedged propeller. It would have to be lifted and pushed forward slightly for them to pry themselves away, but there was little space to work the handle in. After leaning the handle against one of the skids and shortening her grip, she was able to work eight inches of the metal bar under the tip of the fallen propeller.
    “Ready,” she said tentatively, wiping a sweaty palm on her pant leg. Dirk was also sweating profusely, as the cramped cockpit had grown hot once the air-conditioning was shut down to conserve power.
    “Pry us out of here,” Dirk