Entry for 2024 Writers Contest The train rattled into the station, doors shuddering open with a jolt. Sierra checked the time on her holoband. 15:17. Three minutes ahead of schedule. Not bad. She stepped into the car, the doors sliding shut behind her, before the train continued down the tunnel. Sierra's eyes were drawn towards the middle of the car and the location of the only three other occupants. A man in a black uniform, seated between two sleeping children. The boy, who appeared to be around 15 or 16, had some sort of strange artefact tucked under one arm, its lights pulsing softly in a deceptively peaceful manner. The younger girl, who was using the man's leg as a pillow, was accompanied by a small round spiderbot, currently in standby mode. Unlike the man, they appeared to be perfectly comfortable. "Not a word, not a cursed word, Lieutenant," Shane growled when Sierra sidled up to them. "Wouldn't dream of it, sir," Sierra replied, her voice perfectly neutral, though she barely made any effort to control her expression. The urge to make a quip about how good he was with children, bubbled up, but she suppressed it. Not even three months ago, she would never have imagined that the formidable captain of the Temporal Regulation Forces could look so flustered, and certainly not over a pair of rogue underage time travellers. Even though Shane had managed to apprehend them without issue, the fact that he only managed to do so after they had completed their little jaunt had to be galling. Especially since this was the fifth time already. But discouraging them seemed impossible, when all they could do was give them a stern scolding and send them back to their appropriate timelines. Their future importance in history, not to mention their personal connection to Shane himself, made it too risky to do anything more. “Join the TRF,” Sierra thought she heard the captain mutter under his breath, “See the impossible. Protect the world from threats across space and time. No one ever said anything about having to constantly babysit your ancestors who stumbled across a stolen time machine as children.”