I was thinking of a short story I wrote about five years back. Pocket Books runs the Strange New Worlds contest for unpublished authors — they can write short stories featuring the Star Trek characters and submit to the contest. I was eligible, and I came up with an idea that I really liked. It was goofy, it was right, it was perfect.
The Starfleet Academy Road Trip.
Here’s the situation…
Young Will Riker and his girlfriend-of-the week Katie sneak off the Starfleet Academy campus, get themselves a car, and head out on that venerable college tradition–the road trip. (Katie, by the way, is never identified beyond “Katie.” She had red hair, though, and she loves her coffee.) Their road trip takes them to Iowa where they visit the James Kirk Memorial. And it just so happens, in the way that coincidences happen in fiction, that Will and Katie meet one of Kirk’s old crew, a retired Admiral named Pavel…
Yeah, that was the story. Devoid of plot or, frankly, anything of interest. Except maybe Will and Katie having a make-out session in a cornfield. And a run-in with a bear.
Because college isn’t college without the road trip. Even Starfleet Academy. 😉
Suffice it to say, I didn’t sell the story. Yet, the world cries out! Starfleet Academy road trips!