Mara's true age and homeworld are unknown, and all records of her past have been destroyed. The only memory to ever surface of those early years was one of terror, as Mara seems to recall the Emperor personally killing her parents and taking her to be his pupil. But while Palpatine's apprentice, Vader, was trained to be a Sith Lord, the Emperor had a more unique approach to Mara Jade. She became nothing more then a tool to Palpatine's will, a weapon which he aimed.

Trained to fight with a lightsaber and the abillity to use her basic Force abilities, Mara Jade took the name of the 'Emperor's Hand', and is the only person known to have that title, though Grand Admiral Thrawn hinted that there were more then one. Mara was trained to be Palpatine's subtle assassin... to do the jobs that no Stormtrooper or even Darth Vader himself could accomplish without the usual crash in and wreck everything approach.

Mara Jade was used to plant evidence, discredit enemies of the Empire, and in the end, attempt to kill the greatest threat to Palpatine's power... young Luke Skywalker.

Hiding out on Tatooine upon the arrival of Han Solo's frozen body, she took the name Arica, and became one of Jabba's dancing girls. However, the day she was hired was the day Luke unceremoniously killed the Rancor, and Jabba declared the sentence of Sarlacc upon him and his friends.

Mara attempted to board the Sailbarge in pursuit of Skywalker, but Jabba resisted her Mind Tricks and would not allow her aboard. Jabba fired her, and she only avoided death by eliminating the Gamorreans sent to kill her.

Distraught after Luke's escape from the planet, the Emperor contacted her by means of their unique connection through the Force and berated her for her failure. Instead of hunting Skywalker again, she was sent on another mission.

As Mara was returning to Coruscant, the second Death Star was under attack. Palpatine contacted Mara frantically, and, in the last contact she ever had from him, showed her his death. In her vision, Luke was brought before the Emperor by Vader and offered a chance to join them... to make peace between the Empire and the Rebels. Luke and Vader turned on the Emperor and, as Palpatine attempted to defend himself, they moved in and cut him down together. Palaptine's last message to Mara was imprinted into her mind from that day forward... "You Will Kill Luke Skywalker."

The backlash of the Emperor's death threw Mara into a coma and, while unconcious, she was captured by the self-proclaimed ruler of Coruscant, Ysanne Isard. Isard, also known as Iceheart, interogated Mara and learned for a fact that the Emperor was dead, killed by Luke and the traitorous Darth Vader. Isard, seeing Mara as a liability to her own power, ordered her executed. Instead, Mara managed to break out of confinement and escaped offworld to begin her exile.

With the Emperor's death, her force abilities slowly began to fade... to survive, Mara took new names and identities, going by names such as Karrinna Janisih, Marelis, and Celina Marniss as she worked odd jobs in the outer rim. Whenever someone came to close to the truth, she simply packed up and made a new name for herself on another world. Finally, while working as a hyperdrive mechanic on the sport-hunting world of Tropis-On-Varont, she ran into two spacers named Syndic Hart and Captain Seoul.

Believing she had been tracked down once again, Mara stalked after Hart and Seoul to find out who they were. As the two began snooping in areas they shouldn't have been looking, Gamgalon, the local crime boss, placed orders for their deaths. Captain Seoul was killed, and Syndic Hart barely escaped with Mara's help. She soon discovered that Hart was actually legendary smuggler Talon Karrde. He gave Mara a job in repayment for saving him. Mara quickly moved up the ranks in Karrde's organization, quickly becoming the second in command of the entire operation. Five months later, both the Empire and Luke Skywalker would reenter her life and drastically change her beliefs.

Mara Jade, now the second in command of Talon Karrde's smuggler organization, begins to feel comfortable in life. She has power, direction, and even a comfortable living. Then, it all goes to hell. Traveling through a restricted sector of space, she stumbles across an X-Wing sending a distress signal. After saving the damaged ship, Mara finds the pilot to be none other than Luke Skywalker, the man she had been ordered to kill by Palpatine. Her attachments to Karrde would not allow her to kill Luke then and there, but her pride and the memories of the Emperor's last order caused her great discomfort. Worst of all, she had to ask for Luke's help when Karrde was taken captive by Grand Admiral Thrawn. As the two worked together to stay alive, they saved each other's lives over and over again, and Mara discovered the truth of the Emperor's death: that Vader had betrayed the Emperor only to save Luke, and that Luke had not incited Vader to betray her former master. As she became a valuable resource to the Republic, she drew closer to fufilling her destiny. During a mission to a planet known as Wayland, Mara encountered a mad Jedi Master named Joruus C'baoth, who had been rejected as a teacher by Luke. He had used the Emperor's prized trophy, the dismembered hand Luke lost on Bespin, to clone Luke. He named his creation "Luuke Skywalker". In the final battle on Wayland, Mara Jade fufilled the Emperor's final order, and slew Luuke, as well as C'Baoth. As a gesture of friendship, Luke gave Mara Anakin's lightsaber... the one he had lost on Bespin and the one used by his clone. Mara, still unable to deal with Luke, went her own way. She went on to help form the Smuggler's Alliance, an organization which worked to prevent the kind of events which occured when Thrawn had taken advantage of numerous smugglers. Eventually, Mara attended Luke's Jedi Academy for some time. Though she refused to stay on, she continued to train her now returning Jedi powers, working with a Jedi Master named Kyle Katarn. After returning to the Smuggler's Alliance, Mara helped pilot the Millenium Falcon at the Battle of Kessel, and continued to work as a Republic Operative. When Mara accompanied Luke Skywalker on a mission to reveal the truth behind a secret Imperial Installation called the Hand of Thrawn, she was finally able to admit her love for Luke, and the two planned to wed. With the treaty ending the final stages of the war between the Republic and the Empire, Luke and Mara's wedding marked a final joining between the two powers. Peace followed for a few years, until a diplomatic mission went wrong. Mara returned from a meeting with a political seperatist named Nom Anor. Soon afterward, she began to grow sickly. An unknown disease began eating away at her, and she grew closer and closer to death. A new threat had emerged from outside the known universe, a foe which was not visible to the Force at all. The Yuzhaan Vong. Soon, it was revealed that Mara's sickness was a spore introduced by the Yuzhaan Vong's pre-invasion agent, Nom Anor. When the Yuzhann Vong traitor was found, Mara was cured by drinking the tears of an alien Jedi, known as Vergere. The tears had an unexpected effect, causing her body not only to heal, but also to regress. Mara would later find herself pregnant, and in the midst of the Yuzhann Vong invasion, she gave birth to her first child, who she and Luke named Ben Skywalker. Born of the two strongest Force users in the galaxy, Ben Skywalker's ability is as yet unrevealed, but it is believed that he will eventually become the most powerful Jedi in history. 2 Years after the war Mara had  second son Nick, yet another destiny to be found.

Mara Jade, is from my opinion the best!