Once that the second Death Star's existence, state of (still-under-)construction and current position had been officially corroborated, the Alliance resolutely went to plan its permanent decommission:
One of the recent defectors had conveniently acquired them a Lambda shuttle – one that the Empire didn't know it was missing, the hard-bitten woman was swearing up, down and sideways, one of the rare perks of getting relegated to clerical drudge work. The shuttle plus some hopefully still valid Imperial identification codes would be used land a strike team on the Forest Moon of Endor, with the mission to deactivate the deflector shield projected from said moon which kept the barely more than half-formed hulk of the Death Star impervious to almost all attacks.
Disguised as a resupply run for the shield generator station, the shuttle would feign a technical failure in the final descent and drop off the team without reaching the official landing platform. From there on, the strike team would approach one of the peripheral bunkers protecting the huge generator station, gain entry by some measure and use the internal systems to hack into the generator control to collapse the shield, in time for the combined Alliance fleet to destroy the Death Star before further Imperial reinforcements could arrive.
The primary way into the bunker was to be: walk up to the front door and ask them to open it – a plan Han had come up with, shortly after remarking mockingly that some of the ex-Imperials were going to be absolutely useless for covert work: you could have dropped them naked in the middle of the Dune Sea and the first stormtrooper to happen on them would still salute, the uniform so ingrained into their bearing that it didn't actually have to be there to be visible. The outrageous suggestion had caused some consternation, but on second thought, it was grudgingly accepted that, these days, the Alliance had the knowledge and the uniforms to demand access convincingly. (Jix thought it hilarious that a few of the aforementioned ex-Imperials had been the first to recognize the merits of the plan; both spacers were inordinately pleased with someone's half snide, half self-ironic comment of: Trust a Corellian to play a weakness for a strength!)
Plan B was to capture one of the patrolling AT-STs on the way and knock a little bit more forcefully, if Plan A didn't yield immediate success. Plan C and D were more or less subtle means into the bunker while Plan E was a rather desperate 'stir up the locals' (no one felt quite comfortable with recruiting stone-age level carnivores).
To be precise, that had been the plan before the urgent news had arrived that the Emperor himself was inspecting the construction site in a week's time.
It still was the plan, but the detailed preparations had been… rushed.
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Luke would have been a logical choice to lead the fighter wings attacking the second Death Star; however, both the Force and his father's last, terse mental message had told the young Jedi that he had to get into the Endor system earlier than the main fleet.
When he'd mentioned the first one aloud, Alliance High Command had reluctantly offered him a place in the strike team – and with that five other volunteers had taken their places, too. There had been several voices protesting Leia's involvement, but lately the former princess had kept Han within sight with grim determination and a grimly determined Leia was a force even High Command had learned not to engage unnecessarily.
The rest of the two dozen or so commandoes were a mixed lot, part old rebels, part recent recruits. The sheer number of the latter had initially caused more than the usual strain on the atmosphere while the new soldiers slowly integrated, but time and success (and especially several close calls during the withdrawal from Elrood and the following battles in the Airam Sector) had served to prove that the newcomers knew what they were doing and meant what they said (and quietened the reverse misgivings about the long-time rebels' rather loose interpretation of discipline, by demonstrating that a glib tone didn't mean the owner couldn't shut up and follow orders quick and decisively if necessary).
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Reverting to real space in the Endor system, to find the half-completed Death Star surrounded by a small group of stardestroyers dwarfed by the skeletal construct, was the expected thing; for Luke, at least, it was equally unsurprising when one of the latter resolved into a blue-grey spearhead that stood out even against the moon-sized station. What made the young Jedi swallow heavily, however, was the conflagration raging at what felt like touching distance – his father hadn't consciously flared his Force presence like that since … well, his dramatic entry on Bespin.
"Vader's here," Luke said, all but involuntarily.
All around the young Jedi, alarmed looks were exchanged; Han reacted with a (predictable) piece of pep talk, Chewie barked something worried-sounding and then some Imperial system control officer broke the spell by announcing, "We have you on our screen now. Please identify."
Shaking off the disconcertion with a physical jolt, Zev leaned forward and matched the dutiful but bored air, tone for tone. "Shuttle Tydirium requesting deactivation of the deflector shield."
A clearance code was requested and sent over, and while it was processed, there was a perfunctory question about the shuttle's cargo and destination.
Everything checked out and the shuttle continued on its course towards the heavily forested moon. Han delivered a credible performance as 'pilot trying not to panic while his engines sudden give out on him' and cut off any further communications shortly before dropping the ship almost perpendicularly but with miraculous control into a small clearing between the towering evergreens.
Jix credited the quality of the act to plenty of practice with the real thing, and it didn't help matters when Chewie made a huffing noise that sounded suspiciously like agreement. Leia cut them both off with a snapped order to get ready to move out.
She had been tense since entering the system, and while Luke had so far ascribed her bad temper to the sight of another Death Star, given her traumatic experiences with the previous one, now he was starting to wonder if his sister wasn't subconsciously picking up on the dark flames drawing nearer.
The thought made his decision, to separate from the rest of the team as soon as possible, even easier to follow through with.
A few hours march away from the shuttle, a patrol on speeder bikes obligingly provided him with the means. As soon as the bikes were secured, the young Jedi pulled Major Derlin, the commandoes' unit commander and Leia aside – but who was he kidding, the rest of the gang was also listening in, more or less discreetly.
"Vader is here... now, on this moon," Luke told them quickly, forestalling any questions about how he knew that by adding, "I felt his presence. And he can feel when I'm near. That's why I have to go. As long as I stay, I'm endangering the group and our mission here."
No one was happy, no surprise there, but in the end Luke got his will, even if it had taken a few quiet words in Jix's ear to get rid of the persistent Corellian.
"I need you to look out for my sister if I don't make it back," had left the tall agent pale and wide-eyed, but fiercely determined to do his job.
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Finding the official landing platform was easy, even when using a rather circuitous approach (both to habitually obscure the position of the rest of the team and buy them some further time), and getting himself captured produced no more than a vague feeling of déjà-vu. The commander executing the actual arrest, the young Jedi was practically at home with – the black-clad officer wordlessly held out his hand, Luke reluctantly slapped his lightsaber into it and that was that. One day I really ought to find out the man's name, if we keep meeting like that...
The pair of red-armored guards flanking his father's imposing form were another story, though. Madine's insistence for Luke to scan each and every one of the new defectors for sincerity had taught the young Jedi very rapidly to recognize if someone had spent substantial amounts of time with his father, whose pervasive presence left distinct traces, a scent of smoke lingering in the wake of the firestorm, metaphorically speaking.
These Red Guards, on the other hand, had a touch of Darkness on them that wasn't a bittersweet reminder of his father's fiery presence, at all. To stretch the simile to the breaking point: seen through the Force, these men were sticky with the oily soot of a smoldering fire that slowly and insidiously suffocated every life in its vicinity in poisonous clouds.
I'm not an Ewok fan. First I thought them somewhat ridiculous and then I came across: Admiral Piett and the Great Ewok Adventure by Monika E. Simon (look it up, if you haven't read that one, yet, it's GREAT! But not for the faint of stomach, occasionally…).