"As you were," Haynes instructed.
"You checked those cartridges against those I brought in from Aldebaran I?" asked Kinnison of the officer in charge, as, accompanied by the port admiral, he crouched down behind the shields of the control panel.
"Yes, sir. These are twenty-five per cent over, as you specified."
"QX—commence firing!" Then, as the weapon clamored out its stuttering, barking roar, Kinnison made the dummy stoop, turn, bend, twist, and dodge, so as to bring its every plate, joint, and member into the hail of steel. The uproar stopped.
"One thousand rounds, sir," the officer reported.
"No holes—no dents—not a scratch or a scar," Kinnison reported, after a minute examination, and got into the thing. "Now give me two thousand rounds, unless I tell you to stop. Shoot!"
Again the machine rifle burst into its ear-shattering song of hate; and, strong as Kinnison was and powerfully braced by the blast of his drivers, he could not stand against the awful force of those bullets. Over he went, backward, and the firing ceased.
"Keep it up!" he snapped. "Think they're going to quit shooting at me because I fall down?"
"But you had had nineteen hundred!" protested the officer.
"Keep on pecking until you run out of ammunition or until I tell you to stop," ordered Kinnison. "I've got to learn how to handle this thing under fire." The storm of metal again began to crash against the reverberating shell of steel.