Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Paramount.  Xanth belongs to Piers Anthony, long may he live and write.  A few of the puns and characters parading through here will be mine, though most will belong to one of the two aforementioned people/companies.

A/N: Xanth is a strange place.  A straaange place.  A magical peninsula located where Florida is in our world, Xanth is run on magic and puns, filled with magical animals, strange people, and stranger plants.  I'll do my best to explain details as we go along, if you ever get confused let me know!

THE STARS TREK THROUGH XANTH

CHAPTER 1: In Which Things Begin Innocently Enough

Captain's Log, Stardate…It's a little hard to say.  Anyway, whatever Stardate it is: This is…a very odd mission we're on, very odd indeed.  It all began innocently enough this morning…

That morning:

The Enterprise, as it often is, was in orbit around a Class-M world, which was a remarkable parallel to Earth.  Some parallel is not uncommon.  This parallel was a bit beyond the norm.

"Interesting statistics," Spock said from his science station at the back of the bridge.  "Atmosphere, gravity, general climate zones, all within point-five degrees of a parallel to Earth.  Unusual, though not unheard of."

"Even more interesting is that I could swear that peninsula down there is Florida," Kirk commented idly, watching the planet spin by on the viewscreen.  The peninsula in question did look a lot like Florida.

"Except that Florida is on Earth, 27.5 light-years away," Spock deadpanned.

"Of course.  My mistake.  Guess it's not Florida."

"It does not seem likely," Spock agreed.

Kirk paused a moment, and tried to decide if this was the Spock equivalent to joking.  He decided there was no way to be sure, and he'd better not try to figure it out.  A person could go crazy that way.

"I think we should beam down," Kirk announced.

"There is no discernible cause for doing so," Spock said calmly.  "There does not appear to be anything of scientific interest here, due to the excessive parallel.  Where there is no originality, there is little interest."

"Thank you, Mr. Spock, for explaining the logical basis of curiosity.  But even telling myself there is no cause for curiosity, I still find myself wanting to beam down.  Is there a logical reason for that?"

Spock merely looked at him.  "None, Captain."

Kirk reflected that it was hard to tease Spock.  Maybe that's what made it fun.  "I still think we should beam down.  Take a walk, stretch our legs, pick up a plant or two, just for kicks."

There were at least two portions of that statement Spock could have requested clarification on.  He chose not to, but merely nodded.  "If you think so, Captain."

"I do," Kirk said decisively, and stood. "Mr. Sulu, you have the conn.  Mr. Spock, let's go collect the good doctor and some security personnel, and investigate our horribly unoriginal planet."

*  *  *

It wasn't long before they were all gathered in the transporter room.  Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and two security personnel, Ensign Jones and Lt. Simmons.           

"You ask me, this is my kind of landing mission," McCoy said, pleased.

"This mission has no apparent purpose," Spock pointed out.

"Right," McCoy agreed.  "No purpose, no dull grass-forms to catalogue, and—even better—no aliens to shoot at us, or weird animals to try to eat us.  Just a nice walk for kicks."

Spock's eyebrow quirked, and this time he took the bait.  "'Kicks,' Doctor?"

McCoy started to answer, stopped, considered, reconsidered, and gave up.  "Forget it, Spock, just forget it."

"If you two are done, let's go on this dull and uneventful jaunt we're planning," Kirk interrupted.

Within moments and with a surprising minimum of mishaps—considering Jones and Simmons were involved—they all got into place on the transporter pads.

"Where to, Captain?" the transporter technician asked.

"How about that peninsula on the northern continent?  Let's see if it looks like Florida up close."

"Aye, Captain."

The technician twisted a few dials, the familiar, sparkling transporter effect took hold, and the figures of the landing party faded out.  [A/N: This may be the last entirely reasonable, sane sentence in the entire story.  You have been warned.]

Because this was short, and not much happened, I'm posting chapter two also.  Don't get spoiled, lol.