One minute they were helping Kasumi (or Shepard was, to be exact) and the next they were running through buildings as they blew up with Zaeed, blowing up an old Cerberus facility with Jack, and then bouncing halfway across the galaxy again to help Tali clear her name. Ashley voluntarily chose to sit that one out; Garrus knew Tali better than she did, and the last few hours had been nonstop gunfights and too much running for her to handle. She'd never seen Shepard book it through anything, but he seemed determined to get through this as fast as possible. He wanted that IFF before Cerberus could figure out what they had. He wanted to get to the Collectors first. She didn't blame him. Ashley actually agreed, but she needed the chance to decompress before getting back into it. Too much stress could set her off, and after so much effort in controlling herself, she didn't want to ruin it so close to the end.

Regardless, it wasn't like she could sit around doing nothing. She gave herself the hour after blowing up that Cerberus facility to pull it together. Then she was back up again, trying to think of something productive to do. Her side twinged under the strain to let her know it hadn't healed yet, but it wasn't like it hurt. She slapped on some medigel after pulling out the piece of shrapnel earlier and kept going. Once the wound sealed and the medigel was removed, all she had to do was slap her hard suit in one of the lockers and it would be good to go in an hour or so. But until then, she had to deal with the extra weight.

Ashley threw her backpack down on the table to restock when she came back, then made her way out into the Combat Information Center and up to the bridge. The walk was noticeably longer than it had been on the SR-1. Maybe she should've noticed that before, maybe not, but she didn't care. Cerberus gave them the finest damn ship ever built and they stole it right out from under their noses. That was only possible because their pilot knew the ship better than anybody, resized or not, and because Cerberus wasn't dumb enough to test his flight skills.

"—wrong with rounding up," Joker was saying as she stepped inside. EDI's holographic bubble was blinking in time with the words leaving her...mouth, metaphorically speaking. If Ashley didn't know any better, she'd think there was a slight scolding tone to the AI's voice.

"You busy up here?" she interrupted.

Joker visibly jumped, let out a curse, and swivelled around to look her in the eye. "You both need to stop doing that."

"You're not flying the ship. I'll be as quiet as I want."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. What do you want?" She started to answer, but he cut her off, adding, "Playing chicken with a dreadnought was one thing, but if you're going to tell me to play chicken with the whole Migrant Fleet, I'm kicking you off the bridge."

Ashley snorted. "No, nothing so entertaining."

"Your idea of entertaining is going to get us blown up. Again, in your case."

"If I'd been blown up, I doubt I'd be standing here right now."

"Whatever you want to call it. Either way, I'm not doing anything you say unless Shepard authorizes it," Joker said. He shifted in his chair and settled his cheek in a hand, propped up on an armrest. "So what's up?"

"You busy?"

"Just arguing with mom about rounding."

"Rounding up when numbers should be rounded down?" Ashley asked, arching a brow.

Joker scoffed. "I can't believe you'd accuse me of such a thing."

She couldn't help grinning as she sat in the vacant navigator's chair. After turning it to face him, Ashley said, "I just know what you're like." He rolled his eyes dramatically and shook his head. "Anyway, I came up here to ask if you could bring up all the information you have on the Omega 4 mass relay."

Joker sat up immediately. "Like that going through will get us killed? Because that's the extent of my knowledge."

"No, flight patterns and the trajectory of ships that have passed through." He swivelled back around and brought up a screen, then flicked it towards her so it appeared on the one behind her. She turned to face it, frowned, and said, "This is just a list of ships and dates."

"Yeah, that's all I have," Joker said. "What ships went through and when contact was lost. As hard as it is to believe, Cerberus doesn't know everything. Even they don't have info like that."

Ashley leaned forward and frowned at the list. It only went back ten years, and as the list went down, it got progressively thicker, like eventually ship captains stopped getting so cocky and quit attempting to survive the relay. She imagined it would contain hundreds of names and listings if it went back to the time humans joined the rest of the galaxy in space.

"Can we get destinations for these ships?"

"What?"

"Where they were supposed to be going," she explained. "I might be able to figure something out if I can see that."

"Uh...I don't think anybody would be stupid enough to mistake a giant red mass relay for the usual blue thing," Joker said. "Anyone who went through had to have gone through on purpose."

"Yeah, well, you haven't seen how stupid some of the people in this galaxy are," Ashley retorted. "Someone's had to have mistaken it at some point."

"You have, like, zero faith in anyone."

Ashley got up, looking out the viewport, and replied, "I have faith in Shepard to get this done. I have faith in you to kick some Collector ass when we get there."

"Wow, a compliment? Thanks," he said sarcastically.

Her brows furrowed as an idea popped into her head. "EDI, cross reference that list with missing Alliance warships and remove any that don't fit. Then go to the Alliance's extranet page and use my information to log into their databases. Pull the logs on those missing ships and put the travel data on the map in the conference room."

"That will alert Alliance intelligence officers to—"

"A hit on my account. Yeah, I know. I can deal with that later. This is more important. Send Lawson to the CIC you're finished." EDI's bubble disappeared for a moment, and Ashley looked back at Joker, who was visibly confused. As a matter of fact, it wasn't hard to read Joker's body language. Ever. "You up for a walk?"

"What the hell are we doing?"

"Figuring out where this damn relay goes," Ashley explained. "We need every advantage we can get against the Collectors, and knowing where we'll be sent is step one."

The pilot sighed, took off his hat and ran his forearm across his forehead, then stuck the cap back on. "To the CIC?" Ashley nodded, offering him a hand up. Joker gave the proffered hand a wary look before accepting her help from the chair. She allowed him to take the lead, feeling only slightly guilty for dragging the guy out, but quickly dismissed those feelings. This would be worth it in the end, and if Joker had a hand in helping them figure this mess out, it would just be something else for him to brag about.

"The information you requested is displayed in red," EDI said. "Operative Lawson will meet you on the CIC."

"Thanks."

Ashley stuck to Joker's side while he made his way out to the galaxy map. While getting it done mattered more than just about anything, she didn't want to be an ass by going ahead of him, but she got the feeling taking a single step for every two he took wasn't exactly helping with that.

True to her word, Miranda was waiting near the elevator when they reached the back of the CIC. Joker stopped to lean on the edge of the terminals wrapping around the outside of the map while Ashley continued around behind it, joining the almost frail-looking ass of a executive officer the ship had. Ashley wasn't exactly on friendly terms with Miranda, but it wasn't like she was about to march into her office and scream at her like Jack had. She owed Miranda for what happened back on Horizon, which was her whole reason behind being polite and helping her out if she needed.

"What's this about?"

"I think I might be able to figure out where the relay takes us," Ashley said. "Or get a general idea."

Miranda looked genuinely surprised. "I thought you already knew. That was the impression Shepard gave me earlier."

She shook her head. "No, I know how to get through. If we can get that information...it might save us a world of hurt later on." She jerked her head in the direction of the armory and started that way. Miranda followed, as did Joker, and after picking up Jacob, the four of them piled into the small debriefing room. EDI's holographic representation of the Milky Way was already projected in the center of the room and they filled out the corners.

"Commander Shepard would like a report on what we are doing," EDI said as her bubble appeared over her terminal.

"You told him we were up to something while he was busy?"

"The Commander requested a status update on the ship. They are returning from the Rayya now."

Ashley's mouth went dry and she glanced back at the others before saying, "And Tali? How's she?"

"She appears to have been cleared of her charges," EDI reported. "Shepard is on his way to the conference room now."

Ashley ran a hand down her face. She was torn between being glad Tali was safe and being irritated Shepard was back so soon. The man was desperate for any information she could get him, and it wasn't like she wanted to get his hopes up for nothing. But an hour? What the hell went on in a quarian courtroom?

"Um...all right. EDI, mark the Omega 4 relay on the map." A marker appeared over the system, flashing. "Now what do we know about it? The relay?"

"Going through it will probably get all of us killed," Joker said.

Ashley gave him an annoyed look, but Miranda said, "It points south, relatively speaking. Back towards Sol, so it most likely links to another relay in that direction."

"Exactly. EDI, put it on the map." A red line shot from Omega across the map, following the exact path the relay would follow. It went between the local cluster and some star cluster Ashley didn't know the name off. "That's the exact flight path that gets projected on the ship when the relay is activated?"

"Yes. It would cross through the galactic core," EDI said.

"Okay, well, we all know relays can turn depending on where we're trying to go," Joker said. "It's not much turning, but...they still try to angle themselves."

"EDI, account for possible drift and any change in courses." The red line became a red zone, crossing over the glowing center of the map and fanning out to cover both the local cluster and the cluster the original line had passed between. "That leaves us with a huge portion of the galaxy that we might bounce off a connected relay."

"Nearly a fourth," Miranda said.

"More like a sixth," Jacob countered.

"Whatever, doesn't matter," Joker said. "Where are you going with this, Ash?"

She started to answer, but the door hissed open. Shepard strode inside the same instant, ripping off the white and red N7 helmet he'd been wearing. He set it on the table, let out an irritated breath, and looked at the four of them, frowning. "Don't stop on my account. EDI filled me in."

"Right," Ashley said. "Okay, take the information you got from the Alliance's database and project it in blue." Another single line started at the relay's location and shot through the map, stopping at the pulsating core. "If they all followed that exact path, get rid of the drift." EDI removed everything that wasn't the original red line, leaving it going across the imitation map, past the end of the blue line.

Ashley waited for it to sink in. The relay would send them to the galactic core, God only knows how, but that was where the data pointed. To her, it made sense. She remembered too much light and so much debris, remembered a massive ship, and if EDI was saying they were going to the core, then she'd buy it.

"Let me be the first to say...your girlfriend is insane, Commander," Joker said. "There's no way this is right."

"This is EDI's data, Joker," Ash retorted.

Shepard was staring at the map, brows creased together in a frown, as he looked to Miranda and Jacob. "What do you think?"

"I think this is insane," Jacob said.

"It's impossible," Miranda answered. "It doesn't even make sense."

"The galactic core is just a bunch of exploding stars and black holes. No one can survive that, not even the Collectors."

"The Collectors are working for the Reapers," Ashley said, bracing her hands on the table. "You're going to put it past them to have the tech to survive that?"

EDI's bubble moved from her terminal by the door to her terminal at the table, right beside Shepard's face. He didn't flinch. "It is highly possible that the Collectors have found a habitable zone at or near the core, and use Reaper IFFs to match the relay's signal. This way, they are not sent through the core itself, but to their base."

"Another reason we need that IFF," Shepard said. Ashley tried not to frown at him, but he hadn't straightened throughout the entire conversation, let alone really moved at all. He met her eyes now, face set in a determined expression. "This match everything you've seen?"

Ashley nodded. "Yes sir."

Shepard looked back to the map and sighed. "Then I'll stand by you and EDI. If they say that's where we're going, that's where we're going." Joker and Jacob both saluted, but Miranda stood there with her arms crossed. Ashley was just relieved Shepard believed them. "Joker, head back to the bridge and set a course for Tuchanka. After that, Omega, and then let Ash program whatever she needs to so we can go get this Reaper IFF. And you—" He pointed at her. "—meet us down in the cargo hold in fifteen minutes. The rest of you, dismissed."

So close, she thought. We're so close.

Ashley didn't know if she was excited or scared.