Red-gold hair, green eyes, dancer's figure... This beautiful woman has taken a very long journey from being the closest personal aide to Emperor Palpatine (with a blood oath to assassinate Luke Skywalker) to becoming one the the Alliance's most able friends.
Once the "Emperor's Hand," Mara Jade would go anywhere in the galaxy to carry out Palpatine's orders. Her missions were so secret that not even the Emperor's closest aides knew of her. After Luke Skywalker's battle with Darth Vader on Cloud City Palpatine secretly ordered Jade to kill Skywalker. She beat Skywalker to Jabba's palace and went undercover as "Arica," but she failed in her mission, and Luke went on to help destroy the Emperor and the second Death Star. Mara Jade was filled with guilt and vowed to kill Skywalker for that was the Emperor's final order.
After the Emperor's death, her powers of the Force became weaker. As she became an outcast looking for a new job, she ended up working for Talon Karrde, a smuggler. She soon became his second-in-command. In the strange ways of fate in the Star Wars Universe she did encounter Luke Skywalker (who else?) and saved his life, a favor they traded back and forth several times.
She and Karrade had been drawn into the battle between the New Republic and Grand Admiral Thrawn, when a mad Jedi clone (Joruus C'baoth) called both Luke and Mara to him, then unleashed Luuke (Skywalker's clone) on the pair. Mara fulfilled the Emperor's final command when she killed Luuke and C'baoth with help from Luke and Leia Organa Solo. By killing Skywalker's clone she was finally free of the Emperor's will.
Over the next few years, Jade helped Karrade form the Smuggler's Alliance, who threw it's support to the New Republic. Karrade at one point had turn operations over to Mara completely, at least for awhile anyways. After Luke started the Jedi academy, Mara became a pupil briefly but left to continue running the Alliance and help challenge the hit-and-run attacks of Daala, an Imperial Admiral. She went on danerous missions with Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, and became romatically involved with Calrissian. Later, at Han Solos request, Karrde and Jade located and brought Forcebending ysalmiri to the planet Almania. Solo used them to help Luke and Leia defeat the Dark Jedi Kueller.
Of course this cannot be the end of the story of Mara Jade...
