vaporized

It did occur to him that perhaps he__ gone to the wrong Academy _ the guys in the Space Fleet always had more interesting stories to tell at the spaceport bars. You know, tales about the dude who got vaporized in a plasma accident in the engineering section, or the fella who got turned into a blob of weird space jelly by some alien virus _ or the time someone flew a starship into an astor-field at warp four by mistake (they were still trying to find the black box on that one). The Imperial Space Fleet__ recruiting office sure didn__ go around advertising __oin up, see the universe, meet interesting aliens and die screaming_, but it was known there were risks involved. It was part of the job after all, and yet somehow, they still got recruits signing up in droves. Yes, indeedy _ the stories were far more interesting than his _ took a load of ore to Gorda, took a load of mining equipment back to Tordrazil. Took a load of Florpavian Flame-birds to a zoo on Deanna, took a load of machinery to Salus. Picked up and dropped off a few passengers on the way. Still, Florpavian Flame-birds were a risky cargo_ and damned tricky to transport _ which is probably the only reason he__ had any entertainment at all on the last trip.