The smell of blood filled the air, alongside the screams of anguish from both infidel and Crusader alike. Knight Templar Jonah Schmidt lay amongst his fallen comrades and enemies, the wound in his gut continuing to seep away his vitality. He coughed weakly, and resumed his whispered prayer to God in Heaven for salvation, or at least mercy.

“Pater noster qui es in cælis…”

Another fit of coughs racked him, and he lost the will to continue. Would the Lord have mercy on him? He had done such wicked things, even if they were supposedly in service to Christendom. He shuddered, a sudden wave of coldness enveloping him. His sight grew dimmer, as more of his blood was lost to the gash in his side.

Then, he saw them. A figure had appeared among the scattered bodies and dying. A host of Heaven? Clad in white, the figure drew closer. Jonah couldn’t force his eyes to focus on the figure properly, so much of his strength had left him. The specter approached him and spoke hushed words he couldn’t comprehend. The language of God, Himself? Jonah sighed as the cold and darkness washed over him even more. He had been saved, and would be in God’s Kingdom, soon…

What felt like an eternity later, Jonah woke. He was no longer in that cursed battlefield, but now in a chamber awash with soft, white light. He sat up, finding he was no longer in pain. Looking down, he was awed to see that his wound had been healed so cleanly that not even the faintest scar remained. His armor had been stripped, and he was now clad in a light gown of the same brilliant white as the room he found himself in. Muttering praise to God, he tentatively swung his feet off of the bed he had been laid in. When they found the floor, Jonah noted that it was not cold and rough like the stones of the castles and fortresses he was accustomed to. It was impossibly smooth, and emanated a soft, gentle warmth. He sighed and laughed aloud. This had to be the Kingdom of Heaven, for no such wonders were possible on Earth.

He stood, carefully, as a slight wave of dizziness hit him. He stretched his sore, tired muscles, glad to be free of the oppressive chainmail armor he’d worn for what felt like a lifetime. Moments later, a door opened in the wall of the chamber, which had been so cleanly set that it had been invisible prior. A figure stepped in, and Jonah was intrigued to see that it was, at least by appearances, human, not angelic. In fact, it was a woman, beautiful to behold, with sleek auburn hair drawn back into a neat bun, smooth, flawless complexion and bright, clear hazel eyes. She smiled at Jonah, reassuringly, and spoke, but the words were foriegn and completely incomprehensible to him. She moved toward him, and reached out to take his hand, which he offered readily. She took his hand, and felt along the front of his wrist. She then took a strange instrument from the pocket of her white coat and shone a blinding light into Jonah’s eyes, one at a time. Jonah, while completely baffled, complied with this strange examination. Perhaps she was inspecting his soul through his eyes, prior to his judgment?

Then, she drew another object from her pocket. Before Jonah could get a proper look at it, she reached up and jammed it into his right ear. Jonah gave a slight cry of shock and confusion, as the object was hard and rather cold. The woman spoke again, and Jonah was amazed to hear not only the foreign-sounding speech in his left ear, but perfect German in his right ear.

“You’ll be happy to hear that you’re in excellent health, Herr Schmidt,” she gave another reassuring smile. “Please, come with me.”

Jonah, freshly awed once more, simply nodded dully, and followed as the woman led him back through the same door she had entered through.

The woman led Jonah through a series of seemingly never ending corridors, all of them constructed the same soft, white material as the chamber he had been in moments before. Jonah saw a number of other doorways, which he could see were now only just barely observable for the seams they left when closed. He wondered perhaps where they led, and if one of them perhaps housed God, Himself. Finally, the woman came to a doorway, which opened at her approach, and she motioned Jonah to enter.

“Just in here, Herr Schmidt. Dr. Wallace will explain everything shortly.”

‘Dr. Wallace?’ Jonah was perplexed, but complied regardless. As he entered this room, which was likewise of the same character and material as all the others, he noted that he was not alone. At least a score of other people were present, all of them clad in the same white gown as himself. However, this was one of very few similarities he shared with them. These people appeared to be from all around the world. Some appeared to be of European origin, like himself, perhaps even of the Empire, but he couldn’t be sure. Others were exotic and strange. He counted around three or four that appear to be Moorish or African. Another five that were clearly East Asian of some kind. He momentarily chided himself, however.

“God’s goodness is great,” he reminded himself. “Of course, He would permit anyone who loves Him into his Kingdom.”

He found an empty seat among this menagerie of God’s chosen, and waited. To his right sat a fellow who appeared to be around his own age, tall and thin, with graying brown hair. He glanced at Jonah and spoke. Again, his left ear heard only gibberish, but his right ear received a perfect translation.

“Any idea what’s going on?” the man asked.

“We wait for God’s judgment,” said Jonah, simply, as if it were obvious. The fellow made an odd face and chuckled darkly.

“‘God’s judgment’, eh?” he chortled. “I guess that’s as much as anyone can hope for.”

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The fellow looked down at his hands, and Jonah followed his gaze to see a sight that shocked him to his core. The man’s left arm was gone, and in its place was a menacing hunk of metal, fashioned much like the armor he had worn in his past life. This steel appendage terminated in a hand with three bladed digits, which the fellow flexed pensively as he observed it. Jonah looked away, feeling slightly ill. Just what was going on?

A moment later, another door opened in this chamber and a man stepped in. He, like the woman that had brought Jonah here, was clad in a long white coat over a strange-looking gray tunic that buttoned at the front, and a pair of fine brown trousers that ran straight. He stepped to the front-and-center of the room, looking out at the assembled group. Jonah took in the man’s features, now that he was the sole focus; tall and lean of stature, with white, thinning hair and a pair of spectacles perched on a prominent nose. His face was not quite unseemly, but somewhat wan, with lines and creases etching his mouth and eyes which shone with a sort of quiet intensity that marked a mind rarely at rest.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Doctor Martin Wallace, Head of Temporal Conscription at the Chronos Institute. You are here, today, because you have been called upon to serve a very important task.”

Jonah listened carefully, though nothing made sense, even with this strange object in his ear whispering the words to him in his own language. The Chronos Institute? Temporal Conscription? These things meant nothing to him, but they were spoken in such a way by this Wallace fellow that they had to mean something. He looked around at the others and noticed that some of them had apparent expressions of the same confusion he felt, while others were listening intently, and apparently understood something of what this man was saying.

“You are here because, in your own time, you were going to die. However, your life is worth far more to us in the now than your death would be in your respective histories. Some of you may be under the belief that this is the afterlife, be it Heaven or Vahalla or Hades. This is not so. You are in fact still on, or in this case, above Earth, though a far different Earth than what you might remember. The year is 2745, anno Domini.” Wallace added the Gregorian indicator almost perfunctorily, as not everyone in this room used the same calendar. “For some of you, this may be a significant shock, but you can be assured that your life in this era will be at least somewhat more comfortable than the one you left.”

Jonah’s stomach dropped. The battlefield he had left only a few hours ago was nearly 1800 years past. He was not in God’s Kingdom, but still fully alive. He didn’t want to accept it, but something in his heart told him it was true. Then, suddenly, the man with the metal arm on his right raised his right hand into the air, which Jonah saw was still flesh. Dr. Wallace noticed this and nodded toward him.

“Yes, Mister…” the doctor paused, perusing a list on the podium he stood behind. “Grossman?”

“Yeh,” said Grossman. “What of my crewmates, on the Dragovich?”

“Ah, yes,” said Wallace, uncomfortably. “You were taken from the 25th Century interplanetary corsair vessel, operating primarily in Jovian space…” Another pause, as the doctor reviewed his information again. “I’m sorry to inform you, but your vessel would be destroyed three Standard Weeks after you were removed, during a skirmish with Sol Coalition forces. All hands were lost.”

Grossman gave a strangled cry of anguish. Jonah, though he didn’t quite understand, could recognise the pain the man felt, and a bubble of pity welled up within him. Losing comrades in arms was always bitter, let alone an entire ship full. Another figure raised their hand, situated in the row in front of Jonah. This was one of the asiatic looking men. Doctor Wallace indicated them next.

“Komitsu-san?”

“Do you honestly expect me to live alongside the Sino dogs you have also brought here? They are without honor. They have slaughtered my brothers and violated my sisters. I cannot and will not allow myself to ally with them.”

Dr. Wallace paused, rubbing his brow and sighing. He’d dealt with this sort of thing far too often, and it was always a petty nuisance.

“We don’t merely expect it,” he said, slowly and patiently, but with a rumble of a veiled threat. “We require it. The threat we face in this era is unprecedented in all of human history. Your historical animosity with other cultures and ethnicities is no longer relevant, and should be discarded.” He cast an eye around the room at other attendees, some of whom shifted uncomfortably in their seats, refusing to look at one another. “If you are unable to accommodate this, then we would be happy to return you to your origin timeframe, in the exact state you were found. Consider this carefully.”

Silence permeated the room. Dr. Wallace cleared his throat, fidgeted with the collar of his coat, and then continued.

“Which brings me to the reason you’ve all been brought here,” as he spoke, a window appeared in the wall behind him, but this window did not show the outside. Instead images appeared within it, of a creature monstrous and terrible. “The threat I mention is unlike anything ever faced by mankind. They call themselves the Kovian Syndicate. They are an extraterrestrial race bent on imperial domination of any resource-bearing worlds and star systems they find. Approximately twelve years ago, they detected the Sol system, and the flourishing colonization efforts mankind has been cultivating the past five centuries.They have, in no uncertain terms, declared all out war on the human race, with the express goal of destroying our colonies, slaughtering the bulk of our race, and enslaving the rest to gather resources for their vast interstellar empire. Either they do not understand conventional diplomacy or choose not to engage in it and they do not negotiate. They, if not stopped, will wipe us from the galaxy.”

Jonah noticed his heart was suddenly pumping quite fast, now, as he let this information sink in. The device in his ear was rapidly supplementing the doctor’s words with contextual information that he didn’t possess already, threatening to overfill his mind. In nearly two millennia since the Crusades, mankind had grown and expanded, discovering new sciences and technology. They had set out into the void of the sky, beyond Earth. They had set foot on the Moon, and later Mars, so distant though it was, and they had continued. Now, after all of this incredible progress, inhuman creatures from even greater distances had come to wage destruction. It was too much…

Dr. Wallace, as if sensing Jonah’s unease, spoke further.

“You will be given ample time to acclimate and assimilate to this era, our new, shared culture, and will be offered instruction in the technology you will be expected to utilize. But, understand this; you are here now, because we are desperately in need of soldiers to fight this seemingly unending war. We simply do not have the birthrate to support a standing army capable of repelling this threat. So, we have reached into our past, carefully plucking away lost souls, to save our future. All of you, please, fight for us, instead of amongst yourselves. It is the only way we will survive.”