Chapter 10 – Twilight of the Thunder God
The ship Tali ended up purchasing was another human-built ship, roughly the same size as the one she had lost. It had no name, and Tali was not in any mood to try to think of one. For a used ship it was in quite good condition, and as they travelled to the nearest mass relay Tali found that the engines did not require much tweaking to get them up to her standards. The interior was dimly lit and appointed with grey and blue hues, which very much reminded her of the Normandy. The used ship dealer had explained to her that the previous owners of this vessel found the interior to be much too dark, but most quarians preferred lower light levels.
No one from her crew came to talk to her for the entire length of the trip back to the Migrant Fleet. Not that Tali had any desire to speak with them, but sitting alone in the captain's quarters for hours on end was rather unnerving, to say the least. Quarians were very social people, and yet her life was one long, slow, descent into isolation. First her mother had died, then her father had become too absorbed in his work to ever have any time for her. The friends she'd made on the Normandy had been thrown to the wind, and she doubted that she would ever see them again. And now her crew, the people she was supposed to trust and care about, despised her, and the feeling was mutual. This was not a situation that could end well. They had already lost one person – Prazza's girlfriend – and she was definitely not the last. Tali knew that her squad's antics would get them all killed one day, sooner more likely than later. She was amazed that they had not already gotten themselves killed.
Contrary to her expectations, the admirals had little to say to her when she returned. They were understandably annoyed that she had lost yet another ship, but bringing back a replacement did much to lessen their anger. None of them were interested in the strange aliens that had attacked them; instead the admirals seemed preoccupied by something else entirely and more or less blew her off when she gave her mission report. They did not tell her what they had on their minds, but Tali knew what it was they were worried about.
Quarians were exceptional engineers, yet even then there were limits to their abilities. Many of the ships in the flotilla were centuries old, and after that length of time they became harder and harder to maintain. There were few parts available for ships more than fifty years old, let alone three hundred, so often parts had to be manufactured by the quarians themselves. Eventually, maintaining a vessel became more effort than it was worth and they would be forced to scrap it. That meant its crew would have to be reassigned to other vessels, placing an even greater burden on them. They could always find new ships, but the rate at which older vessels were being scrapped was already outpacing the rate at which they could be replaced. At some point they were simply going to run out of room on the remaining ships, meaning that some quarians would be forced to leave the fleet and even stricter population controls would have to be enacted. Unless they found a planet to settle, their race was doomed to a slow, agonising extinction.
Some people, such as admiral Koris, suggested that they ought to forget about ever reclaiming the homeworld and instead settle some other world. But to Tali (and many others) this was simply unacceptable. Settling another planet would mean that every quarian alive today would have to give up the idea of ever being free of his or her suit. They would have to cannibalise most their ships just to get their colony on its feet, which meant that they would be stuck there until they had the ability to build new ships, which might be several generations. Worst all, settling another world would do nothing to ease the pain of having lost their homeworld. It meant giving up, abandoning all hope of ever returning home.
Taking back the homeworld, unfortunately, was a distant dream at best. Tali knew that throwing the entire fleet at the geth would do nothing except get them all killed. The only way they could ever reclaim it would be if all the spacefaring races in the galaxy united to exterminate the geth, and no one was rushing to gather an army.
Of course, all this might be irrelevant anyway. If the Reapers came back Tali doubted that the fleet would last long against them. How many ships were destroyed just to bring down one of them? And those were modern warships, not the rickety, centuries-old ships of the flotilla that required constant maintenance just to remain operational.
Several months passed by in a blur. Tali wanted to mark the anniversary of the Normandy's destruction, but she didn't know how. No one else on the fleet cared. No one else in the galaxy cared. The Citadel Council's move to completely discredit Shepard was complete, and if you so much as said the word "Reaper" around anyone they'd laugh you off as kook or some gullible dolt. Knowing the truth and being unable to do anything about it, Tali quietly slid into a haze of resignation and despair. She went about her duties on the Neema with even greater fervour than usual, thinking that throwing herself into her work would keep from thinking about the Reapers, about Shepard. She quickly realised that there was not enough work in the galaxy to prevent her from dwelling on those things.
Two months later the admirals came to her with a mission. Tali was shocked, certain that her lack of success on prior missions had doomed from ever being assigned to another. It was another mineral-surveying mission, although this time the admiralty assured her that her ship had been outfitted with a salarian-made mineral scanner that was supposed to be much safer and far less likely to cause stars to explode than the Perkele5000 scanner. The system they were sending her to was thoroughly uninteresting save for its potential mineral deposits, and she was reasonably sure that there was nothing there that might blow them up, send them back in time, fling them into an alternate dimension, or doom them to whatever other ghastly fate the universe could dream up.
As she expected, she wasn't getting a new crew. It was the usual gang of clods, only this time they appeared to have gotten worse. Prazza nearly all of his time playing that stupid MMORPG on his omni-tool, even when he was supposed to be working. Everyone on his ship had long since given up hope of ever getting Prazza to do any useful work for any length of time, and so they had adopted a strategy of simply ignoring him. Juodaan's vice of alcohol had rendered him all but dead, unable to stand most of the time. Skaal was his usual morose self, barely ever speaking now, and Vrael wasn't even bothering to hide his criminal acts any more. Tali did not know it, but he had, through the creation of fraudulent wills, managed to drain the bank accounts of all the dead crewmembers of the Normandy who had no families to bequeath their wealth to. He did this to spite Tali, but refrained from telling her, knowing full well that she would likely react by shooting him in the face. Vrael was still angry that Tali had returned Shepard's money to his mother, Hannah Shepard, who planned to donate to various charities. It was just one more thing that convinced Vrael that Tali cared more about humans than her own kind.
With barely any words between her and the crew, their ship, now named the Kamala Kohtalo, was on its way to the nearest mass relay. While Tali slept, Juodaan was fumbling around the engine room, staring in consummate confusion at the control panel. There was a sudden clarity in his booze-addled mind, and when he looked over the seemingly-incomprehensible array of buttons, switches, and displays Juodaan realised that he knew absolutely nothing about how engines worked at all. He tried to think of the reason he had been named Tali's chief engineer, and he could not remember anything. Nevertheless he was confidant that if he just stared hard enough at the FTL drive readouts he would figure it out before long. But after nearly an hour of staring, he still had no idea what anything did or what anything meant. What was a "Weyl tensor?" What was a "Lorentz factor?"What were "Einstein field equations?" So far all he could say that was that the engines made the ship go forward, and he wasn't quite sure of that, either. Unable to suss out what anything did just by looking at it, Juodaan decided that the best course of action would be to push various buttons and switches and randomly fiddle with settings until their purpose became clear. Besides, he reasoned, they weren't at FTL speeds, so what harm could there be in making a few adjustments to the FTL drive?
But the mass relays were built on unknown technology, so no one who designed this vessel could have anticipated what might happen when a ship with an improperly set, albeit deactivated, FTL drive went through a mass relay.
Tali'Zorah discovered this when she woke up to find bright sunlight streaming the window of the captain's quarters.
What the...?
She stood up and saw that there was a bright blue sky outside, and that their ship was now resting amid lush, green rolling hills. At first she wondered if she were dreaming, but it quickly became apparent that she was not. Gathering her wits about her she stormed into the cockpit where she found the rest of crew staring out the window, equally puzzled as she was.
"What happened?" she said. "Where are we?"
Vrael answered her slowly. "We're...uh...here."
"Well what does the navigational computer say?" she asked impatiently.
"Nothing; it says we're in dark space, but this place certainly doesn't look very 'dark' to me."
Dark space, or more accurately intergalactic space, was the part of the universe that was between galaxies. It was the most empty place in the universe, being close to a perfect vacuum, with only 10 to 100 hydrogen atoms per cubic metre. That was clearly not the case here, as they were obviously on a planet that had a sun, even though such things should not be found outside of galaxies. Tali was beginning to feel the dreadful (but now very familiar) sensation that something had gone very wrong and they were now in some place they should not be.
"What's the status of our ship?"
"Everything's fine, except the FTL drive. Juodaan was screwing around with it just before we went through the last mass relay, but we never engaged it. It shouldn't have done anything to alter our destination."
Unlike many of the other catastrophes that had befallen her, this was not something that was caused by some impossible act tearing the universe a new one. Instead it was an unforeseen interaction between their ship's improperly configured FTL drive and the mass relay. A relay did not transport a ship to a precise destination, but rather flung them within an area that might be several thousand kilometres wide. When their ship had passed through, the miscalibrated FTL drive had somehow caused the relay to become exponentially more inaccurate, sending them more than 100,000 light years beyond the galaxy. That they had landed in this place (wherever it was) was only due to an amazing, almost-impossible coincidence.
That left the issue of how, precisely, they were going to get back to where they had been just moments prior. Juodaan, who had until now been silent, was presently pacing about the cockpit, agitated about something.
"My booze sense is tingling," he said. "There's vast quantities of alcohol around here somewhere; I can feel it!"
"What are you talking about?" said Tali, annoyed.
"My booze sense! All quarians have it, but only some of us are attuned to it. We can detect the smallest amounts of alcohol vapours in the air and follow them to the source. And there must be a whole lot of it going by what I'm feeling right now. Come on, men! Let's get us some liquor! Wooo!"
Juodaan ran off to the airlock, and before Tali could do stop him he and the rest of the crew were running across the surface of the planet (or whatever this place was). Seeing no choice but to follow Tali went after them, stopping to take in the world around here. Wherever they were, this place was strikingly beautiful, with deep blue skies and lush vegetation that was an almost impossibly bright shade of green. The sun was nearly directly overhead, even though there should not have been any stars in intergalactic space.
Behind her, not far from their ship, was an immense gorge crossed by a rainbow. This was no mere trick of the light, as it remained fixed in its position as she walked about. It looked to her eyes like the rainbow formed a bridge over the gorge, but surely that was just silly, wasn't it? Nevertheless it was another sign that they probably in some place they shouldn't be, and getting out of her ought to be their top priority. Obviously her crew didn't share that opinion, as they were now bounding across the grass like a gaggle of idiots.
As she tried to catch up with them she brought up her omni-tool and began a quick scan of the area. It had an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere, identical to the one on Earth, yet this was clearly not Earth. She patched her omni-tool into the ship's sensors, hoping to get a better fix on the location of this planet, only to learn that this was not, in fact, a planet, but rather a large, flat disk measuring several thousand kilometres in diameter. Had she been any other person she would have been panicking right now, but Tali was so used to absurd situations by now that she merely took it in stride.
Her crew had come to a stop just ahead, and when Tali caught up with them she saw that a tall, pale-skinned human was standing before them. He had a sword in one hand (who carried swords any more?) and a large battle horn in the other, but what really set him apart was how he was dressed, looking terribly similar to what someone in those godawful RPGs Prazza played might look like.
"I am Heimdall, guardian of Asgard. What manner of wights are you that come hither so strangely-clad? Speak, I charge you!"
All of them turned and looked at each other with 'what the hell?' expressions on their faces. Tali, being the captain, spoke first. "I am Tali'Zorah of the Migrant Fleet. Our ship had an engine malfunction and we ended up here, wherever 'here' is."
That only confused the man, who glared at Tali as if she had just said that the sky was green. "You look not like any valkyrie or dísir I have ever seen! Speak your purpose!"
Prazza stepped forward. "Did you say 'valkyrie?' Well one of my Galaxy of Fantasy PCs is a level 87 valkyrie. I use her mostly as my DPSer, and I can get loads of XP using her during PvP PuGs, as long I'm not playing with some noobs who cause a TPK. Most of the time, though, I use my level 98 Ardat-Yakshi mezzer/debuffer, although that might change when the latest patch comes out, 'cause I heard Ardat-Yakshi are pretty OP right now, especially after min/maxing."
He just stared at Prazza with a blank expression. "You speak words yet say nothing."
Well if that isn't the truth, Tali thought. "Look, we only wish to return to where we were. We didn't meant to come here-"
"He has an evil air about him!" the man cried, pointing at Prazza. "I will leave it to the Allfather himself to decide what is to be done with you. You are to come with me, or I shall slay you all where you stand!"
Vrael drew his pistol and pointed it at Heimdall. "Or I could just shoot you."
In a flash Heimdall drew his sword and sliced Vrael's gun neatly in two, making it clear that this was no ordinary blade. Vrael just looked at his now-useless weapon with a stunned expression on his face.
"Well...well that wasn't very nice..."
So they had no choice but to follow this strange person. Tali quietly brought up her omni-tool and did a search for the words "Heimdall" and "Asgard," then shared her findings with the crew. What she had found was absolutely ludicrous, and yet that did not surprise her in the slightest.
"According to my omni-tool's database, 'Asgard' is the realm of the gods in human mythology, specifically the people of early mediaeval Scandinavia."
Vrael snorted. "I'm sure you're a goddamn expert on the subject, you human-lover, you."
Heimdall just laughed at her. "Mythology? Oh, how sad it is to see that the mighty Æsir have been reduced to mere 'mythology!' There was a time when the people of the north revered us, but then they forsook their faith for a foreign god, and then they stopped believing in gods altogether. Now we only serve as the basis for cheap, unoriginal role-playing games and the inspiration for countless heavy metal bands."
"Wait," she said, stopping in her tracks. "You mean the mythology is true?"
"Of course! All the other gods humans thought up – the Christian one, the Greek ones, the Egyptian ones, the Celtic ones...none of them exist. We're the only true gods. But you must know that we do not blame people for following other gods. Humans have dreamt up so many religions; what are the chances you'd ever choose the right one?"
This discussion was much too advanced for Prazza. "So if this is like an RPG," he said, "then I nominate Tali to be our tank. It's her job to hold enemy aggro while we get to safety."
She ignored him. "So what you're saying is that the only human religion that has any truth to it is one no one follows any more?"
Heimdall nodded. "Sad, is it not? We could have Thor ride his chariot across the skies of Midgard, but you see, there's a rule about being a god that states that you're not allowed to appear to your people in any manner except those which might easily be explained as natural phenomena."
Over the next hill the quarians were treated to a magnificent site. It was a fortress or a hall of some sorts, rising majestically into the sky. Its walls shone brilliant gold, bright enough that even with Tali's helmet on it almost hurt to look at it. What amazed her most, however, was the sheer size of the building. It was so large it didn't appear to move as they drew closer to it, and it stood high enough that its peak reached through clouds.
"This is Valhalla," said Heimdall. "The hall of the fallen. All humans who die gloriously in battle, chosen by the valkyries, come here. We call them the einherjar, and they are finest warriors in all of existence."
Prazza's mind was still on his silly role-playing games. "I remember the Valhalla DLC for Galaxy of Fantasy. What a load of crap! Walk into the place and you immediately get ganked by a horde of berserkers! Gotta have some good CC skills for that."
"My booze sense is off the scale!" Juodaan exclaimed. "That building most have more liquor in it than anywhere else in the galaxy!"
"Indeed it does! Here the ale cups are never empty; as soon as the last drop is drunk the cup refills itself."
Juodaan was now more excited than Tali had ever seen him, though in a short while he would probably be comatose once again. They were now near the gates of the hall, with each door reaching nearly fifty metres in height. "This is Valgrind," said Heimdall. "It is one of the five hundred and forty doors that lead into the hall, from which the einherjar will storm forth during Ragnarök. Inside awaits Allfather Odin himself, ruler of Asgard, the High One, Lord of the Æsir, the Battle Enchanter, the Wanderer, the Spear God, the God of Victory!"
"I'm just here to get drunk," Juodaan muttered.
In the back of her mind Tali was still worrying about how they were going to back home, but she was too much in awe of this world to think about that at present. When they entered into Valhalla she was rendered speechless by the sight before her. It was so large that many of the ships in the Migrant Fleet could easily fit inside, and like any quarian ship it was filled with people. All of them were human, or course, and they were all seated at long, wooden tables that appeared to stretch out forever. There must have been thousands of people here, many of whom dropped what they doing to look at the quarians, obviously unused to seeing such strange-looking individuals.
At the far end of the hall was a man seated in a throne atop a dias and surrounded by men wielding large, two-handed battle axes. He was aged, with long white hair and beard, and when Tali looked closer she saw that he was missing one of his eyes. Two black birds sat on the arms of the throne, belonging to some species of Earth avian Tali was unfamiliar with. While the man looked human, she sensed that he was something else entirely. They were far, far from their home, in a place no quarian should ever be.
Standing next to the old man was a huge, hulking warrior, standing nearly seven feet in height and possessing wild-looking, blood-red hair. In his hands he carried an enormous hammer, obviously a weapon, and when Tali scanned it with her omni-tool it revealed that the hammer was made out of a solid form of neutron-degenerate matter, which should have been impossible as it would have weighed more than several planets combined.
"Allfather Odin, I found these five not far from Bifröst. I know not where they come from, only that they are not einherjar!"
"I know who they are, Heimdall. The purple-clad one is Tali'Zorah." His voice was deep and gravelly; the sort of voice one immediately associated with great wisdom.
The huge, hammer-wielding man stepped forward, speaking in a voice that was so low Tali could almost feel it rumbling in her gut. "She is the Stjarna-tortímari?"
"Indeed. I know many tales of great warriors, such the wise Egill Skallagrímsson, the sagacious Njáll Þorgeirsson and his most worthy comrade Gunnar Hámundarson who was brought low only through the treachery of his wife. I know of the matchless Grettir Ásmundarson, who bravely fought his enemies to death on the island of Drangey. But never have I ever met one who could shatter a star, who could sail the rivers of time, and who could travel vast distances in a single bound."
Prazza bristled at the thought of this man praising Tali like this, supreme god of the Æsir or not. "She is not worthy of your praise!"
Odin glared at Prazza with his one remaining eye. "And what is your name, impudent one?"
"I am Prazza. You should be in awe."
He sat back in his throne. "That is a very infamous name; a very hated name."
"Wait," said Tali. "You know of us? Of quarians?"
"You think I know naught of what happens beyond these walls? There is nothing in all the nine worlds that escapes me."
"And what do you know of Prazza?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"This hall is a place of revelry and joy. I will not shame it by speaking of this man's foul deeds. It is only for you, Tali'Zorah, that we have not slain him where he stands."
The large, red-haired man was clearly upset at hearing this. "This wretch is not worthy of standing in this hall! He might as well be one of the cursed hrímþursar!"
"Still your tongue, Thor. Must your solution to every problem involve smashing it with your hammer?"
This was enough to send him shrinking back to where he had been standing. "But, it's my hammer..."
"You must forgive my son, he tends to have a rather...simplistic...mindset. But a better warrior against the jötnar, there is none."
Tali was confused. "The...what?"
Odin smiled slightly. "The ancient race of giants who seek to destroy all we hold dear. 'Reapers' your people call them. Soon Ragnarök shall be upon us – the final battle that will herald the end of the world. Today we drink and celebrate, as we have every day before this one, but when the times comes, every man within this hall shall storm forth to meet our enemies on the field of Vígríðr."
"You...you mean you would actually help us fight the Reapers?"
"It is what we are for. All shall fight in the coming battle, and many shall die. No true warrior can ask for a better end than that. But let us not talk of death and ending. Here the ale cups and mead horns are never empty!"
That was enough to put Juodaan into a fit of barely-contained excitement. He sat down at one of the long tables and quickly got to work setting himself up for some gross overindulgence. He took out a short length of hose from one of his suit pockets, then attached one end to his mask and put the other in the cup. In less than five seconds he had emptied it, and to Tali's amazement, the cup instantly refilled itself, as if by magic. This elicited a mad fit of laughter from Juodaan, who just as quickly emptied the cup again.
"There is one more thing," said Tali. "We need to get back home. I...I don't suppose you'd know a way?"
Odin ran his hand through his beard. "'Tis simple enough. Cross the rainbow bride Bifröst and you shall be returned whence you came. I must warn that once you leave, you will not be able to return. I am amazed that you found your way here in the first place."
It was not so amazing to Tali, who was quite accustomed to bizarre and improbable happenings by this point. She was about to ask this Odin character another question when she heard a familiar voice.
"Tali?"
She spun around and nearly fell over at what she saw. "Kaidan?"
"What are you doing here, Tali? You...you're not dead, are you?"
"N...no!" she stammered, completely floored by it all. "But you...you are! You died on Virmire!"
"I did, and I wound up here. I know, not what you'd expect. But it's a great place once you get used to it."
Tali recovered her composure, and her shock turned to her relief at meeting one of her teammates. During her time on the Normandy she hadn't talked much with Kaidan Alenko, as she had the impression that he was a rather private person (humans were strange like that). Still, it was an immense relief to see someone familiar.
"The thing is, once you're here you're not allowed to leave," Kaidan continued. "We still hear things though, like what happened to Shepard..."
"Shepard? Is he here?" The thought of meeting him gave her a surge of hope that felt like getting hit with a jolt of electricity.
Unfortunately her hope was soon to be crushed. "No, he's not," said Kaidan. "It's the damndest thing, too. We all knew he was dead, and that he was definitely worthy of being brought to this place. When you die, they have the valkyries bring you here, but for some reason they couldn't find Shepard."
Vrael snorted. "Probably 'cause he was disintegrated on re-entry."
Kaidan shook his head. "No, they know how to deal with things like that. I don't know the reason; maybe Shepard is on a whole other level of 'dead' that makes it impossible for him to reach the afterlife."
Tali stepped back. "That's horrible!"
"Cry me a river," Vrael muttered.
She ignored him. "And no one cares that he's gone. The Council and Alliance tore apart everything he said."
"I can see the Council doing that, but the Alliance? I can't believe they'd turn on him like that. It's just not like-" Kaidan paused and looked over at Juodaan, who was slumped over the table. "I think you're friend has had a little too much to drink."
"Oh...yes...he does that a lot..."
Vrael tried to rouse Juodaan from his torpor to no avail. "Come on," he growled. "Get up, you drunken sot!"
When he did not move Tali started getting nervous. She patched her omni-tool into Juodaan's suit and brought up his bio-stats. "Heart rate falling! Brain activity dropping! Blood alcohol level...fifty?"
Vrael looked up at her. "Fifty what?"
"Fifty percent!"
He rolled his eyes. "That's impossible. He would have died of alcohol poisoning long before then."
"I wouldn't worry," said Kaidan. "You can't actually die here. During the day we all fight to hone our skills, and anyone who gets killed just pops right back up again."
"Amazing!" Prazza exclaimed. "It's like a thousand-player deathmatch server with no respawn timer!"
As if on cue, Juodaan slowly got back up. "Ugh, what happened?"
"You drank yourself to death," said Vrael. "In less than a minute. That's got to be some sort of record."
Tali decided to continue her conversation with Kaidan a little further away from her crew. "I must apologise for my crew, they...they're..." She struggled to speak the word that was on her tongue. "They're...idiots."
"I noticed. Who'd you piss off to get stuck with them?"
"The fleet's admiralty board, but I don't know why. I will say that our missions haven't been boring, although I don't know if that's a good thing or not."
"So how did you get here, anyway?" he asked. "Only dead people come here, and I'm pretty sure that aliens aren't supposed to be here either."
"I...I don't know. We were going through a relay and then all of a sudden we were here. I'm sure it was Juodaan messing with the engines; he's supposed to be our chief engineer, but he doesn't know anything about engines at all! That, and he's always drunk!" Tali stopped herself from ranting, knowing that nothing good would come of it.
"Let's go, Tali," said Vrael, interrupting their conversation. "We're getting out of here. Way too many humans, and not enough of them are female."
This was too much for Juodaan, who had decided that this was the place he was meant to be. "No, no! You won't take me! You can't! This is the best afterlife ever! This is where I belong! I won't go! No no no no no!"
"You're coming even if I have to drag you!" Vrael snarled, and began dragging Juodaan along by his arm, all the while he was kicking and screaming.
"No, no! It's not fair! You can't do this! I'll hate you forever!"
Tali looked back at Kaidan, unable to conceal her embarrassment at the behaviour of her crew. "I guess it's time for us to go. It was good to see you, Kaidan."
"You too, Tali. Keep fighting the good fight."
His words were nearly drowned out by Juodaan's howling, which was drawing stares from the rest of the people gathered. It was very much like a child throwing a tantrum when he didn't get his way, and after seeing him like this Tali contemplated locking him out of the ship's engine entirely. It was something she should have done a long time ago.
Somewhat jaded from her previous experience, it was hardly surprising that Tali was a little less shocked at having met a dead person than most people would be in a similar situation. As they stepped out of Valhalla and into the bright sunlight, she began to have the first inkling of just how absurd the circumstances were – being in a place straight out of human mythology that happened to exist in real life somewhere far beyond the galaxy. She immediately decided not to dwell on that realisation, fearing it would be hazardous to her mental health, which she guessed was already in a rather fragile state.
No sooner had they left the hall then Thor, the hulking, hammer-wielding warrior, was standing before them, eyes afire with hatred. "I care not what my father says, this man Prazza must die! He has an evil stench about him!" He gestured at him with his hammer. "I challenge you to hólmganga! You are not the like of a man, and not a man in your heart!"
Prazza crossed his arms in defiance."You challenge me to what now?"
"A duel, this one to the death!"
"You want to take on the 'Praz? Are you insane? I've shit bigger than you!"
Tali grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. "What are you doing? My omni-tool says that this man's hammer has more mass than three planets put together! He'll kill you in every way you can be killed!"
She didn't expect him to listen, but something must have gotten through to him, because he began backing away from Thor, obviously frightened.
"On second though, screw you. I'm not going to waste time fighting with you."
Thor inhaled sharply, looking as if he might explode into an unstoppable rage at any second. "You...you dare turn away my challenge?"
"Yeah, I do. Deal with it."
"Then I name you niðingr, the worst scoundrel who ever lived! All who know your name shall know of your cowardice; they will call your argr – 'unmanly' – and spit on the ground you walk upon! Your deeds will counted amongst the most shameful and wretched acts in memory, and when you die, it will be in a manner worthy of only mockery and derision!" He then thundered off, leaving the quarians in a rather awkward silence.
"What's that guy's problem?" said Prazza as they continued on their way.
Tali looked back at the enormous building behind them, wondering if anyone back on the flotilla would ever believe her if she told them about this place. It was probably a good idea not tell anyone, as they would likely assume she was insane. Her crew might back her up, but then again they might not, just to make her come across as a raving lunatic. They were downright malicious like that.
"I'm amazed by this mission, Tali," said Vrael as they climbed back into their ship. "No one died and nothing exploded."
According to Odin, all they had to do to leave this place was fly over the "rainbow bridge" and they would be back in familiar space. First, though, she had to undo all the meddling Juodaan had done to the engines, which took nearly a half hour. Juodaan himself was lying unconscious in his quarters, having consumed more alcohol than anyone else in the galaxy in such a short period of time. Tali was no doctor, but she knew that something in his body had to give if he kept up the way he did.
As soon as the engines were online she returned to the cockpit of the Kamala Kohtalo. The mass effect core kicked in and the ship smoothly rose into the air, only to bang against the ground a few times due to Vrael's inept piloting. Ahead was the rainbow bridge, a sight that Tali found both spectacular and spectacularly silly at the same time. The ship moved forward over the bridge, rocking side to side, again due to the fact that Vrael knew as much about piloting as Juodaan knew about engines. The bridge spanned a chasm that was so deep Tali could not see to the bottom of it, but she had little time to enjoy the view as the world around them suddenly stretched out into infinity before it was replaced by the black void of space.
The first thing Tali did was check the navigational computer, which told her that they were in the exact same place they had been just before they had been flung into Asgard. Having not sustained any damage during the brief excursion beyond the galaxy, they continued onwards to their destination, where they would engage in some thoroughly routine and uninteresting mineral scanning before returning to the fleet.
During that time Tali was totally consumed with what Kaidan had said about Shepard. If Asgard was where humans went they died, then there was no good reason why Shepard should not have been there. She refused to believe that it was because Shepard was "deader than dead." There had to be another explanation. Maybe he was not really dead. Yet she refused to allow herself to think that, either. It was just too painful to hope for something like that only to have your hope crushed. That was the sort of hope that could consume you and drive you to obsession. No, she had to accept that Shepard was gone. It was stupid and selfish on her to dwell on him like this. Over a year had passed since his death and still she had not gotten over it.
Yet it was so hard to get over him. There was so much unfinished business of his, so many things that still had to be done, that Tali didn't want to move on. If she didn't continue what Shepard started, then who would? But what could she do – one woman from a race that no one respected? It all felt so wrong, like an itch in the back of her mind that she couldn't scratch. All she could do was carry on as she had, flying around the galaxy with a bunch of dolts who were probably going to get her killed, sooner rather than later.