Read "Narakan Rifles, about Face!" by George H. Smith online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Later in the day as he sat in the shade of the command post's overhanging roof with his back against a stack of sand-bags, he cursed himself for sixteen kinds of an idiot as he watched the evacuation begin. Beta was dropping low over the pink Maldo hills as the long line of earthmen filed up the gangway into the big airship.
"Hello," said a voice behind him. He turned to find Joan Allen standing there clothed in radiation armor and holding a small canvas bag in one hand. "I thought. I mean. I came to say good-bye."