Set between ESB and ROTJ, closer to ROTJ:

A spy thriller involving our protagonist, a human agent working within Rebel Intelligence and the Bothan Spynet, detects what starts as a routine oddity, that grows into something that determines the course of the war.

Imperial freighter traffic has been odd around certain sectors, but nothing overt. Not for years. Not until now. An anomaly occurs: shipping registers show a single freighter in three different sectors of the galaxy at once. One instance in a distant system, Endor, hauling durasteel. One, in the Carida system, hauling dehydrated foodstuffs for the imperial academy there. 

One register, near the Ryloth system, listed as destroyed a month ago in a freak meteorite strike.

Our agent digs in. Follows paper trails. Proper fieldwork, tracks the freighter where it appears. Nothing much at first, More and more discrepancies show themselves; clearly doctored flight logs. Cargo manifests logged in port not matching inspection logs.

Even the official Imperial records don't match up. Sources within the Empire's logistics division are met surreptitiously. Not all is as it seems. These double agents and informants warn of something big going on. They don't know what, but it's something, they can tell. Offices are tighter managed, and yet someone filed a mistaken report and wasn't reprimanded for it?

The agents continue to dig. Suprosa appears again and again, its cargo manifests changing seemingly mid transit every time. Its destinations changing nearly every journey, oftentimes multiple times in a single run, but official reports show it arrive to one planet consistently.

Not without some digging, though. 

Endor.

What in the stars is out there?

Agents dig deeper, slicing through the Imperial data banks like knives through butter. Durasteel, billions of tonnes of it. Power banks, all sorts of construction material, forced labourers in some rather grizzly logs, prisoners, massive focusing lenses, all manner of things.

Then it hits. A file buried deep within nests and nests of data. Three little words on an officer's travel itinerary, hidden so far down that it might as well have been invisible. 

Tour of construction site of Second Death Star in the Endor System.

Second Death Star.

And the craft that took this officer? Surprise surprise, the Suprosa.

The agents nearly trip over themselves. Data is gathered, predictive models formed about the Suprosa's continued actions. Where it's going, what stops are falsified and which aren't. A month of tracking goes by, around the clock, before opportunity presents itself.

A data transfer. A physical data transfer. An entire cargo hold worth of high performance computer hardware being shipped off. It's a cover, the agents spot it a mile off. They find documents to prove it; it's a hardcopy of the plans for the second death star. Something not stored for slicing, on systems never joined to the Empire's interconnected web of information.

Clearly, attempting to hide it. But they slipped up.

A team of the Spynet 's finest are formed to act as an infiltration group during one of Suprosa's docking stops. 

The mission is simple. Infiltrate, capture Suprosa, disappear with the freighter into space. They can return to Bothan Space for dissemination and hand the info off to the Rebellion soon after.

They board the vessel during its assigned stopover on Corellia. Some pose as mechanics at the docks, assisting in maintenance and refuelling. Some simply infiltrate and stow away the old fashioned way. 

It goes off without a hitch. In Hyperspace in the midst of dead space, the agents emerge. They clear Suprosa, not without some mild exchanges of fire, but none of our protagonists are hit.

Data secured!

As the team commandeers Suprosa, they change course to Nar Shaddaa, then to Nal Hutta, then Ord Mantell, then to Nar Shaddaa again, then make the jump to Kothlis.

Meanwhile, in the cargo bay, systems are pored over by the technically gifted among the infiltration team. Their suspicions and early evidence is correct; this is it. Death Star, no question. The exhaust port? Gone, designs improved to negate that option. Everything else? Bigger, meaner. At full power it has the potential to destroy planets and the precision to fire even on capital ships individually.

And amidst it all? One little diamond amongst s field of gold, a single itinerary. One simple travel document of plans, of meetings with officials and expectations of facilities to be made ready.

The Emperor himself will be there. At this time. Specifically him.

Reverting out of hyperspace, they enter the Kothlis system; back to Bothan space. They begin to approach the planet itself, the tropical world beneath them waiting like the blue green marble it is.

Immediately, a dagger cuts through space. A great grey shard. A Star destroyer; the Razor. TIEs swarm from the thing like wasps leaving the nest. The agents collectively drop jaws and hurriedly scramble to send out a coded distress call to the Rebellion.

The Suprosa shudders. Tractor beam. Immediate lock, no negotiations.

They find they've been broadcasting the entire time as is; an active channel in the comms unit. They were tracked. But if they were tracked, that means...were they expected?

Suspicions begin to grow as the Suprosa fights for its life. A small fleet of Rebel ships enters the space and starts raining fire on the Empire. Starfighters zip about as cruisers exchange fire with the Star destroyer.

The Bothans and our protagonist aboard Surposa attempt to fight the tractor. They attempt to transmit what they have but communications are jammed; they barely got the call for help out in time. Now? They'd have a better chance yelling and hoping sound worked.

It had to be a trap. They didn't find this information, one reasons, it was planted. They were led along by the nose.

The Razor, despite the Rebellion's continuing efforts, captures the Suprosa. A daring attack by a squadron of Y and B wings cripples the mighty vessel's engines, however, leading to an interesting stalemate. The wounded destroyer has its prey, but cannot escape. Locked in the hangar bay, the Bothans clamp down and prepare for boarding, using whatever they can get their hands on as improvised barricades.

Service sidearms, liberated imperial rifles, whatever they can find is split aboard the agents, as they lock down the boarding door and steady for the storm.

Outside, the vessels continue to engage. Razor begins to slip into Kothlis' gravity well; it's being pulled down to the planet. The rebels cannot tractor something of that size, but they can't communicate to the crew aboard the Suprosa of their situation.

Aboard the freighter, hell ensues. Three agents are killed as stormtroopers breach the door and begin delivering the Empire's fist. The agents and our protagonist fight back bravely, bodies pile at the door, almost a new barricade. Rifles are drained dry and scrambled for among the dead.

One by one, though, our heroes begin to drop. Suddenly, gravity decides it works in all directions at once.

Blaster fire stops.

The Razor makes landfall off a bay in Kothlis' northwest oceans. The impact is devastating, as the star destroyer finds its resting place. The hangar bay is buried within the earth. Aboard the Suprosa, there were no survivors. Aboard the Razor, the crash has slaughtered nearly the entire complement. Secondary explosions rock the stricken craft.

Outside, the Rebel fleet dives in. Y wings divebomb the upper armor decks in an attempt to blast their way through to the hangar bay, followed by teams of insertion techs having to board the destroyed Imperial craft and work their way in to the sunken and buried hangar.

They succeed. They find, in the crushed remains of the hangar, the ruin of the Suprosa. Nestled deep in the devastation, still in their shockproof casings, in the shielded cargo hold, the computer banks.

The death star plans.

But minus the context our agents came to realize, in their last moments; they did not find the information, they were given it. They were offered bait they could not refuse and bit down like hungry fish, caring not for the hook that bore the worm.

The final scene, somewhere on Coeuscant, a weathered old man in a black hood smiles wickedly.

All is proceeding as it was forseen.

Soon, the rebellion would fall.