After her training was complete and she had matured into a strong-willed young woman, Mara was assigned a number of surveillance missions, often posing as one of the Emperor's dalliances in order to escape notice. As a member of Palpatine's closest followers, she gained a good deal of experience in the use of The Force. Her latent Force-sensitivity was heightened by the Emperor, enhancing her ability to contact him across vast distances via Force energy. Her physical skills were honed in regular training sessions, until Mara was able to take on the largest of opponents with minimal weaponry. Her good looks often gave her an edge with masculine targets, who could not believe that such a beautiful woman was an Imperial agent.
This combination of assets gave Mara an advantage that other Emperor's Hands lacked, but she put them to good use in the Emperor's service. As a reward for her dedication, Emperor Palpatine gave her a special bit of crystal from which to grow a focusing crystal for her lightsaber. The resulting blade was magenta in color, similar in many respects to the lightsaber once used by Mace Windu. Palpatine never revealed where he had obtained the original crystal, and Mara never asked.
Despite her considerable skills, Mara's control over the Force disappeared almost completely when the Emperor was killed at the Battle of Endor. One of the last missions the Emperor assigned her to was the killing of Luke Skywalker. The Emperor claimed to have foreseen her involvement in Luke's death, and sent her to Tatooine following Darth Vader's failure to capture Luke at Cloud City. She infiltrated Jabba's palace as a dancing girl named Arica, but was not allowed onto Jabba's sailbarge when it left to sacrifice Luke and Han Solo to the Sarlacc. This unfortunate setback allowed her to continue in her efforts to kill Luke, but the death of the Emperor at Endor robbed her of her Force abilities and her main source of impetus.
She went underground after Palpatine's death, since - as a secret agent for the Emperor - none of the surviving Imperials would ever believe she was more than a dancing girl. She performed a number of odd jobs across the galaxy before she joined up with Talon Kaarde. She was working on Tropis at the time, and was employed by two safari hunters who turned out to be Talon Kaarde and Tapper Quelev. When Kaarde and Quelev got into trouble, Mara intervened and helped Kaarde escape. They then made proper introductions, and Mara asked for a job.
She joined up just before he became involved with the New Republic, and was once again thrown into Luke's path. The Emperor's command to kill Luke resurfaced, but the events surrounding Grand Admiral Thrawn's plans for Luke and the New Republic kept getting in her way. She found herself helping Luke more often than not. When she and Luke were reunited in C'baoth's stronghold on Wayland, she fulfilled her "destiny" to kill Luke Skywalker, but not in the way she or the Emperor had forseen.
When C'baoth sent a clone of Luke to battle the original Luke, Mara destroyed the clone, allowing them to survive C'baoth's fury and escape Wayland. Following the death of Grand Admiral Thrawn Mara worked with the New Republic as a liaison between the Republic and the newly-formed Smugglers' Alliance. Following the death of the reborn Emperor on Byss, Mara continued to assist the Republic, but was increasingly pursued by Lando Calrissian, both on a business level and a personal level. She kept Lando at arm's-length from a personal standpoint, but joined in with him to restart the Spice Mines of Kessel as a legal source of glitterstim spice. They were also employed by Talon Karrde to search out the location of Jorj Car'das, a job which took them nearly six years to complete on the side.
During the Caamas Incident, Mara took a group of Karrde's people to Nirauan, to search out the strange ships that attacked them in the Kauron asteroid field. She was stranded on the planet, and was eventually rescue by Luke. They realized that their relationship was now stronger than ever, especially after Mara bluntly showed Luke that his use of the Force needed to be minimized before he could fully understand it. Luke, in response, helped Mara realize her potential with the Force, unlocking it in time to use it to escape from the Chiss who controlled the Hand of Thrawn.
During their escape, Luke asked Mara to marry him, a question to which she immediately agreed. After the resolution of the Caamas Incident, they were wed: once, in a solemn Jedi ceremony performed by Kam Solusar, and again in a public ceremony on Coruscant. Both agreed that they should travel the galaxy as Jedi instructors, leaving the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 to grow beyond Luke's vision.
A few years later, Mara suddenly became ill. Through the sheer will of the Force, she remained active, but was unaware that her illness was actually engineered by Nom Anor, in an attempt to see just how powerful the Jedi Knights were. She resisted the disease he had created long after other victims were dead and buried. After the creature named Vergere escaped from the Millennium Falcon and her servitude to the Yuuzhan Vong priestess Elan, Han Solo returned to Coruscant with a sample of Vergere's tears. The creature claimed they could help heal Mara's disease, and Mara was more than willing to try. The initial stages of her recovery were somewhat painful, but whatever Vergere gave them drove off the disease. She hesitated to call herself cured, and retained a small portion of the tears for later use.
Soon after the Battle of Fondor, Mara discovered two momentous things: first, that it was Nom Anor who had poisoned her on the planet Monor II; and second, that she was pregnant with Luke's son. She refused to stop fighting against the Yuuzhan Vong, but also realized that she could not longer be at the forefront of the fight. When the Senate ordered Luke's arrest, the couple set out for the Errant Venture, where Mara struggled with her pregnancy. It had been complicated by toxic shock syndrome, brought on by the use of Vergere's tears. With Luke's devotion to her and his connection with the Force, he drove out the Yuuzhan Vong disease and helped Mara give birth to a son, Ben.
Luke and Mara spent less time with Ben than they had hoped to, when they were pressed into action defending the Eclipse base from invasion and, later, defending Coruscant. With the fall of Coruscant, Ben was separated from them, but was kept safe by Leia Organa Solo and her husband, Han. Mara and Luke then set out on a most dangerous mission: to locate the rogue planet Zonama Sekot. They were escorted by Arien Yage and the Widowmaker after lending assistance at the Battle of Bastion, and eventually located the mobile planet in the Klasse Ephemora System. Although the planet initially refused to help them, the actions of Luke and the Jedi Knights later convinced Sekot that they were searching for a peaceful resolution to the war against the Yuuzhan Vong. The planet then agreed to follow them back into the galaxy and assist them in any way possible.
However, the treacherous actions of Nom Anor nearly destroyed the planet, which was forced to make a blind jump into hyperspace in order to avoid any disaster. Mara and the Jedi were forced to work with the Ferroans to survive the jumps, which caused tremendous damage to the planet's surface. However, Sekot finally decided to make jumps toward the known galaxy, and after speaking with the Jedi, it decided to jump into realspace near Coruscant. There, Mara and Luke were reunited with Han and Leia Solo, along with their daughter Jaina and several other members of the Jedi Order. Luke's input helped shape the Galactic Alliance's final assault on Coruscant, and Mara accompanied her husband to the planet's surface.
There, the Jedi set out to locate Supreme Overlord Shimrra and put an end to the war. When Mara encountered Nom Anor in the streets, leading a revolution of Shamed Ones, she set out to bring him to justice. He begged for mercy, claiming that he knew of the poisoned coralskipper Shimrra was planning to send to Zonama Sekot. She spared his life, demanding that he lead them to Shimrra. Ultimately, Luke, Jaina, and Jacen were able to reach the Citadel ahead of them, and Mara arrived to find that Luke had been badly injured by the Scepter of Power. She and Kenth Hamner managed to drag Luke free of the Citadel before Onimi was able to launch its escape pod, and Luke went into a deep Force trance to try and heal himself.
In the wake of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, Mara and Luke both worried about their son Ben's decision to cut himself off from the Force, and both were glad when Jacen Solo agreed to work with Ben and draw him out. When the Colony began its rise to power and began threatening the Chiss, Mara was again forced to separate herself from Ben, as the Jedi were drawn into the conflict when it was discovered that Raynar Thul had become the leader of the Colony. At the height of the Swarm War, Mara was badly injured on a failed mission to capture Lomi Plo, the so-called Dark Queen of the Gorog hive. She took a shatter gun pellet in the gut, which ruptured one of her kidneys. After a brief period of rehabilitation, Mara was back in action.
In the wake of the Swarm War, both Mara and Luke tried to concentrate on their son's continuing education, working with Jacen to help Ben grow in the Force. However, Ben began to grow distant, at the same time that Jacen seemed to be falling toward the Dark Side of the Force. Their concerns only increased when Jacen was selected to lead the Galactic Alliance Guard, and Ben was exposed to the terrorism and treachery of Corellian insurgents on Coruscant. Luke and Mara both felt that anhy interference with Ben's education would only bring more grief, but they could not simply sit back and let Jacen drag him over to the Dark Side.
It was during this time that Luke realized the Dark Jedi Lumiya had returned, and wsa probably working with Jacen on some level. As tensions escalated between the Galactic Alliance and the Corellians, Jacen rushed to Hapes to protect Tenel Ka and her daughter, Allana. He brought Ben with him, prompting Luke to demand Jacen to bring Ben to Roqoo Depot, where he could be kept away from the majority of the fighting. Jacen and Lumiya turned this request into a trap, as Lumiya and Alema Rar were waiting for the Skywalkers when they arrived. While Luke and Lumiya squared off against each other, Mara was forced to deal with Alema Rar, who was believed to have died on Tenupe five years earlier.
The struggle was intense, as Mara battled against Alema Rar's Dark Side strength, but she was ultimately able to force the Twi'lek to the ground. It was then that Mara realized the Twi'lek was wired with explosives, and that Lumiya probably was as well. Leaving Alema Rar, Mara rushed to Luke's aid. However, he had already shot Lumiya three times in the chest, and her life signs were fading. Luke and Mara fled Roqoo Depot just ahead of a massive explosion, believed to have been caused by Lumiya's death.
As both Mara and Luke struggled to understand what was happening with their son and Jacen, Mara began to wonder how things might have been different if she had killed her former Master, Palpatine. She then decided that she had it within her power to destroy Lumiya and stop Jacen's fall to the Dark Side, and took it upon herself to hunt down the Dark Lady of the Sith, knowing that Luke was too emotionally-attached to Lumiya to actuall kill her. She also gave her son, Ben, a gift of a vibroblade, which she had tagged with a beacon that allowed her to keep track of his location.
As she set out with Jaina Solo to track down Lumiya, Mara was surprised to find that the tracking beacon in the vibroblade had ended up on Vulpter. However, she kept her focus on Lumiya, and found the Dark Lady on Coruscant. After a brief struggle, Mara believed that she would finally defeat Lumiya, but was attacked from behind. Unknown to Mara, she had been attacked by the Sith Meditation Sphere that had been brought from Ziost by her own son, Ben. The surprise attack allowed Lumiya to escape once again. In the relative peace between battles, Mara learned from Ben of his role in the assassination of Dur Gejjen, and of Jacen's relationship with Lumiya. She realized that she had been avoiding the truth of the situation for months, and implored Ben to keep his knowledge of Jacen's connection to Lumiya a secret. Mara also resolved to kill Jacen for what he had done.
Mara tracked Jacen to Hapes, but was unable to outwit both Jacen and Lumiya. Lumiya damaged the cockpit of Mara's StealthX fighter, forcing her to land on Kavan. Jacen pursued her, and although she managed to shatter his right knee and bring a blaster to bear on his head, Jacen was not ready to die. He drew on the Force to deflect the blaster bolt, then flung the rubble from its blast at Mara. They grappled for several minutes before Jacen managed to extract a poisoned dart from his belt and jam it into her leg. The poison acted swiftly, and Mara quickly succumbed to it. As she died, she railed against Jacen, claiming that he was evil as Palpatine had once been.
Many beings, including Luke and Lumiya, believed that Mara would become one with the Force, and that her physical body would disappear like that of Obi-Wan Kenobi or Yoda. However, Mara's body remained on Kavan, where it was located by her son and recovered. This allowed Ben and Luke to begin the grieving process. Luke, for his own part, believed that he had avenged her death when he tracked Lumiya to Terephon and beheaded her. However, evidence recovered later showed that Lumiya couldn't have killed Mara, plunging Luke into a deep despair.
Ben had been reunited with Jacen on Kavan, and both delivered Mara's body to Luke, although he was confused as to why Jacen showed up so quickly after Mara's death. It didn't take long for Ben to believe Jacen was responsible for his mother's murder, especially after Mara's body disappeared into the Force when Jacen suddenly showed up at her funeral.
