Free The Many Deaths of Joe Buckley by Assorted Baen authors, Barflies

sensor analysis through the suit’s onboard biometric monitors indicated that Joe might have a concussion also. He did feel rather detached, his head hurt, and he wanted to take a nap, which were not encouraging symptoms.
    “I have some idea, yeah. But I don’t know exactly how the legal ins and outs work, so I figured I’d play it safe. Let’s face it, we’re still a private concern and someday we’ll be cut loose. If I’d fumbled this ball, everyone at Ares could’ve been completely screwed.”
    A.J.’s little laugh came again. “Have I mentioned that the two of you are redefining the expression ‘odd couple’?”
    “I can reach you, Mr. Baker.”
    “Enough. Pull, everyone,” Rich said, straining at the beam.
    There was a grating in Joe’s earphones, then several grunts and a faint clanging noise. “That’s got it. Poor Ryu.”
    “Has anyone tried raising Nike ?”
    “We will as soon as we get out of the wreck. Most of the systems are shut down right now.”
    Joe saw the others slowly emerge from the hole he’d made on his impromptu exit. Once more he was astonished that he was still alive. Either his suit had taken the impact with amazing resilience; or, more likely, the chair had spun as he went through the air and broken the window in front of him. He had no memory himself of the sequence of events involved. And then—which he also did not remember at all—the seat must have twisted around and absorbed most of the impact of his final Marsfall. However it had happened, he’d been incredibly lucky not only to survive, but with no injuries worse than a broken leg.

Threshold
    ERIC FLINT AND RYK E. SPOOR
    Blackness slowly lightened to dim gray shot through with red pain. For a few moments he didn’t even attempt to open his eyes, didn’t even know who it was that would be doing the opening.
    Joe. I’m Joe Buckley.
    Joe tried to take a breath, felt knives in his chest and barely restrained a cough. The air was heavy, and cold. He tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn’t open at first. Working his face, squinting and frowning and moving all the muscles, he felt something rough and sticky slowly giving. Finally, reluctantly, the eyelids came open, first the left and then the right.
    Stars. Stars and dark roughness. Another squint, and he realized the roughness was rock. A lot of rock. What the hell happened? He could remember working on the power line for their lab; that was it. Then boom —nothing.
    There were actual scratches across his visor, now that his vision was clearing. Something had hit him hard . Not that his body wasn’t already informing him of that. He managed to move enough to get the self-diagnostics running. The suit was a mess, low on power, low on air, and some systems just plain not running. He wasn’t in great shape, either. Broken ribs, possible minor internal injuries, concussion . . . 
    The comm unit was still active, at least partly. The antenna had been torn away. Where the hell am I? “Hello? Anyone there?
    * * *
    A storm of armor-piercing bullets ripped through space. Focused to as narrow a cone as their configurable explosive propellant charges could manage, they had still been much farther than optimum from their target. The vast majority of the man-made meteoroids streaked harmlessly past Nebula Storm and on into empty space.
    A few, however, did not. Fourteen thumb-sized projectiles with a relative velocity of twenty-one kilometers per second slammed into Nebula Storm , each carrying the energy of a small cannon concentrated in an item the size of a small thumb. Even the Vault material of the alien hull, tough as it was, could not simply shrug such impacts off with impunity. The impacts, even at poor angles, ripped gouges down her sides, punched into the interior, bored through composites and metals like a bullet through butter. But the Nebula Storm was huge, and the chances that a handful of hypersonic bullets would hit anything critical over a