Seducing the Angel from Purgatory

Essie was a pilot, flying missions against insurgents in the desert. She was efficient and beautiful, and the object of desire of every young man. She never made mistakes. Never. Except… just once, on her last mission before leaving for a new job at NASA, and it was a fatal mistake.
She kept the presence of mind to eject just in time, but then there was the insurgent with a rifle, a white flash, and then…

She was certain she was dead. There was nothing but coldness and darkness and… What was the strange creature there with her? A demon? Some sort of temptation? Some sort of test? She must be in Purgatory; there was no other explanation. And yet…

How was Essie to know that far across the Galaxy from where she made the mistake that finished her life on Earth, someone had a vision of her, a vision that had snatched her away from near-certain death? How could she possibly realize that her destiny was with a winged warrior who had waited for so long on a troubled planet of snow and crystal? How could she know that so many needed to find her, to rescue her from the darkness of the remote planet in the Dead Zone? There was no way she could be aware of her importance, or of the importance of the tiny shard of crystal in the locket around her neck. Most of all, how could she possibly know of the love that awaited her, or how she and so many others would have to fight to save so much?