Personal records destroyed by the Emperor when she was kidnapped and taken from her home as an infant, we know virtually nothing about Mara Jade's childhood--and neither does she. Her earliest memories are that of her life as an Emperor's Hand, select people used as Palpatine's personal assassins. Mara was especially valued by the Emperor--with her Force sensitivity, she could hear his orders from across the galaxy. Palpatine began to train her in the Force himself, although she was officially just one of the Imperial Palace's dancers and while there were many Hands like her, each one was under the belief that they were the only one.
Mara was tasked before the Battle of Yavin with discovering any Jedi that had survived Order 66 to help Darth Vader hunt them down.. but just because they worked together didn't mean that they were friends. In fact, it was the exact opposite.
Mara was envious of Vader's position as the Emperor's apprentice, but she also sensed an oncoming betrayal in him, largely based off of her lack of understanding concerning his obsession with Luke Skywalker. Even being one of Palpatine's most loyal, Mara hoped for a time that Darth Vader would betray their master so that she would be able to kill him and take his place.
It seemed that Palpatine sensed this divide in Vader as well, and during the years before the Battle of Hoth, Mara was tasked with spying on Vader and reporting his actions to the Emperor. Mara was not aware of Palpatine's concerns towards the object of Vader's obsession--Luke Skywalker--until after the Battle on H
oth was over and soon she had a new target.
Sent to find and kill Skywalker, Mara infiltrated Jabba's Palace on Tatooine under one of her guises, the dancing girl Arica. When Skywalker was taken to be executed, Mara attempted to use the Force to sway Jabba into allowing her passage onto the sail barge to witness the act. Jabba caught on to this and, already suspecting her on charges of being out to assassinate him (thanks to security detail Melina Carniss), he imprisoned her. Thus stuck, Mara botched her mission to kill Luke Skywalker--years later, Luke would learn through a vision that if Mara had been allowed to attend the execution, she would have succeeded in killing him.
Fate's funny that way, huh?
After learning of Skywalker's escape, Mara Jade returned to a very displeased Palpatine... but even though he did not end her career over it, it was to come to its own end just months later.
Through the Force, Mara witnessed the demise of the Emperor during the Battle of Endor, and she saw how Vader and Skywalker had killed him together. Knowing she needed to flee before those who would inevitably be fighting for control of the Empire could find and imprison her, Mara attempted to get away. She was unsuccessful and was arrested for a time by Imperial Intelligence Director Ysanne Isard, her escape made soon after through the guise of a refugee.
Out of the Empire and out of a life, this was the time when Mara's true hatred for Luke Skywalker sprung up. He had destroyed her master and she knew that she would never be able to avenge him or her ruined life until she murdered the Jedi Knight herself. However, she was unaware that the Emperor's telepathic command was at the core of this desire to kill Skywalker, making it much stronger than any normal wish for vengeance would or should be.
All her previous life and assets as a Hand having depended on Palpatine, Mara had to hop around the galaxy performing odd jobs to be able to get along and her Force abilities, which had been bolstered and strengthened by the Emperor, slowly began to fade. But she never forgot the last command of the Emperor, which still burned itself into her mind years later when she would again come across her most hated enemy: You will kill Luke Skywalker.
Mara's life had still been broken when fortune finally struck her in the form of the smuggler baron Talon Karrde. Having saved him from an ambush
that nearly killed him, Karrde repaid Mara by hiring her into his business. So impressed was he with her that within six months she had risen to his second-in-command, based on her skills and abilities. Even if she still was something of an enigma to the smuggler.
Then suddenly, everything turned upside down again in the form of who else but Luke Skywalker. When she and Karrde rescued him and brought him to Karrde's base on Myrkr, Mara was intent still on killing him, although the fact that Talon didn't know why stirred up some suspicion about her. After a few lucky circumstances for Luke and a little time stuck in a forest together with neither's Force abilities functional (thank-you, ysalamiri), he was able to escape from Myrkr without killing him.
They parted ways for a bit, but that didn't stop Luke from coming to eventually realize that Mara didn't want to kill him so much because of what he had done to her, but because of the command that she was still following from Palpatine. After a bit of work, she began to realize this also, as well as something even more disturbing--she was being used to inflict a final revenge on Darth Vader. In earnest, Luke vowed to Mara that he would help her remove the brainwashing effect that command held for her, despite the fact that being near her put his life in danger. It was this selflessness that made a gr
eat and lasting impression on her.
Later on, while fighting Joruus C'baoth (a clone of long-dead Jedi Master, Jorus C'baoth), Luke had to face a clone of himself as well, created using the DNA from his lost hand back on Cloud City. Luke, overwhelmed by the clone (and--get this--the thing was named Luuke), was aided by Mara, who was successful in striking it down. And
therein lied the solution to Mara's problem--by killing Luke's clone, she had technically fufilled the Emperor's last command. She was finally free of the bindings of the rage that Palpatine had planted within her.
But there was little time for celebration, as the battle with C'baoth was not over yet. As he attempted to use the Force to bring the roof down on Luke and Mara, Mara ran forward and impaled him with Luke's lightsaber blade. Then it was Luke's turn to save Mara as he pulled her out of the way as C'baoth exploded in a storm of lightning. After all was said and done, Luke gifted Mara with his first lightsaber (which both his father and the clone Luuke had used), which she would take and use in battle for years to come.
A lightsaber in hand and a free soul, ten years after the Empire had fallen, Mara set out once again to create for herself a new life. Briefly, she took to being the Jedi apprentice of Kyle Katarn, but when he got a lead causing him to leave for Dromund Kaas, she was on her own again.
Now an agent of the New Republic, Mara took missions, one of which led her in the direction of a Jedi holocron. After a chase to Rathalay and tapping into some of her old and still deeply ingrained training, Mara retrieved the holocron and traveled to Dromund Kaas to find Kyle again. What she found was far from what she expected.
At the Dark Force Temple, she found Katarn completely immersed in the dark side and was forced to fight him. Each time she managed to keep him off and each time he retreated deeper and deeper into the temple. On their final encounter, student switched off her lightsaber and surrendered to her master.. and in so doing, caused Kyle to come across a revalation that turned him back to the light side.
Once again Mara was left without a Jedi Master as Kyle gave up the Force and returned to military action. She returned to Talon Karrde and began doing jobs for him again, the most notable being her mission to track down Jorj Car'das, a task that caused her to have to pretend to be romantically involved with her partner, Lando Calrissian, as a cover for the mission.
During these years, Mara also worked with Luke a few times on different missions, although she declined his invitation to join his Jedi Academy. Mara had concerns about the way Luke ran the Academy and about Luke himself... which she would later, during the Hand of Thrawn mission, reveal to him.
During the time of the Hand of Thrawn 'mission' (because it seemed to be more a mistake than anything), Mara, following a mysterious Imperial-like starfighter, was stranded on the backwater, unknown planet of Nirauan and found herself lost in a cave inhabited by some avian creatures that she felt she could almost understand. Luke, much to Mara's frustration (but also grudging relief), came after her for Karrde in a rescue mission, but the two of them ended up getting stuck in the cave together, where they eventually found the final clone of Thrawn.
While on their newfound quest to destroy this clone, the two Jedi seemed to fall into a very strange and, as Luke called it, 'very special', sort of sync that enabled them to fight as if they were one person. As they faced seemingly inevitable death, Luke and Mara very quickly realized that they were in love and in a rash (but not regrettable move), Luke Skywalker proposed.
As you would suspect happened, the pair got out alive and after Luke's assurances to Mara that he was still serious about marrying her, the two returned to Coruscant to plan their wedding, which closely followed a signing of peace with the Empire.
After they wed, Mara gave in and finally decided to train under Luke seriously in the ways of the Force, eventually achieving the rank of Jedi Master. After reaching this pinnacle, she took on her niece Jaina Solo as her apprentice and constructed her own, new lightsaber, which she modeled after Qui-Gon Jinn's.
Just because she had settled peacefully into her married life doesn't mean that Mara's married life was peaceful. From early on, it was easy to tell that things would start and stay tumultuous--and not in the normal way.
About three years after wedding, Luke and Mara were called upon to go into the Unknown Regions and investigate a Chiss Ascendency finding--the remains of the Outbound Flight project. With a few other groups on the ride with them, 
all with different agendas, it turned out disastarously, ending up with all of them almost getting killed. Luckily, Mara, Luke, and some of the other Jedi found still alive onboard Outbound
Flight made it possible for escape.
Some time later, before the initial start of what would come to be known as the Yuuzhan Vong war, Mara attended a diplomatic ceremony on Monor II as a bodyguard to one of the diplomats. Yuuzhan Vong undercover, Nom Anor, was also present, and secretly let loose on all attendees coomb spores, a Yuuzhan Vong bioagent that proved to be deadly for all there. Almost.
Mara, with the help of the Force, held the disease at bay, but as the war got into its beginning stages, she was growing tired of fighting it and there was still no cure in sight. The disease was emotionally trying for the Jedi Master as well because she came to the very grim and heartbreaking realization that she may never be able to give Luke the child that they both wanted. Feeling the spores attacking her womb but without a thing to do about it, she cried in private (and once to Leia), while attempting to keep a poker face for everyone around her.
During all this she fought on, however, and went with Luke to investigate a distress call coming from ExGal-4 on Belkadan. When they got there, the planet was almost naturally razed, suffering an egological disaster. Because the destruction was brought about by the Yuuzhan Vong, Mara felt a strong connection between the planet's state of ruination and her disease. Despite that this was making her weaker, she ended up being the first Jedi to fight against a Yuuzhan Vong when a warrior in disguise called Yomin Carr attacked her on the Ex-Gal station. She was able to summon enough of her strength up to defeat the imposter, but was nearly killed doing it.
Because Luke was severely concerned at this point about her health, he sent her off to Dantooine to relax. He sent their nephew, Anakin Solo, to be with her and what he gave her in protection, she gave back in lessons on non-Force-reliant strength that he took to heart. But their vacation of learning and recovery didn't last for long. Unexpectedly, the Yuuzhan Vong launched an attack, sending down hundreds of warriors over their heads.
Anakin was able to fend off scores of these while Mara, too weak to fight, struggled just to do the running away they were forced into. After a long and hard time, the two were finally rescued by Luke and Jacen Solo and afterwards participated in the second half of the Battle of Dantooine.
At this point, Mara felt as if she were going to have to keep fighting off this disease forever, but hope came from an unlikely source--the Fosh Jedi, Vergere. Her tears seemed to possess the ability to control the molecular composition of her tears to make them do anything, including heal. Giving a vial of the precious tears to Han Solo to give to his sister-in-law, she ensured that Mara would survive and gave her relief, even if only temporarily.
Soon after beginning use with the tears, Mara realized that she was, inexplicably but finally pregnant. But there were problems that came with this. After being arrested by the New Republic and taking up hiding on the Errant Venture, Mara found out that the tears were causing harm to her unborn child. For the end of the pregnancy, she decided to cease use of them for the sake of the child, although this caused the disease to return and start gaining ground more rapidly than ever.
After a long and painful time in labor and nearly being killed by the process, with the help of her husband, Mara gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Ben, and defeated the disease once and for all.
It was some short time later that the arrest warrants out for the Skywalker family were declared void and they allowed themselves a move to Eclipse, the Jedi safeworld in the Maw cluster.
Because Mara had seen what the war could do, she became very quickly
an increasingly overprotective mother to Ben. She witnessed what Leia had gone through after losing her son, Anakin, to the war and didn't want it to be the same case for her with Ben. As she and Luke went out to hopefully put an end to the war, she decided to sequester the infant away on safeworlds and even hired a nanny droid for his protection.
From that time until the end of the war, Mara participated in many missions vital to the success of the galaxy. One such sent her along with Luke, Tahiri, and the Wraiths, to travel to Yuuzhan Vong-captured Coruscant and defeat Lord Nyax before he could become a threat to the Order. However, ultimately her biggest achievement during the last stages of the war was helping to discover the location of the mysterious planet, Zonama Sekot, and enlisting its help against the Vong. After this was successful, Mara became a member of the strike team that was sent down to Coruscant to eradicate Supreme Overlord Shimrra. Luke killed Shimrra and Jacen defeated Onimi, bringing an end to the long, hard-fought war.
Following up the time of chaos with a time of peace, in the next five years, the Jedi (Mara included) set up a new Jedi Praxeum on the planet Ossus. The Skywalkers took up residence there, as well as on Coruscant, and Mara and Luke finally had the time to reconnect with their child.
Well, sort of.
Because of the trauma of the war with the Vong, heavy and horrible emotions weighed on the strong Force-sensitive's young soul and Luke and Mara figured out very quickly that Ben had become skilled in cutting himself off from the Force. They speculated the reason behind his withdrawal and tried numerous times to get him to open up to them, but those five years passed and the development became more disturbing by the day.
Despite any animosity she might have felt towards Kyp Durron for his ridicule of Luke's mindset during the war, she joined him in leading a faction of the Jedi that believed they were not meant to be the tools of the Galactic Alliance. They believed that the Jedi had to take into account the larger picture of affairs in the galaxy and didn't want to get involved in the politics of the Alliance.
They met opposition in Masters Kenth Hamner and Corran Horn, who believed that the Jedi owed the GA their full attention for the financing they had provided the Order. This debate escalated quickly and harshly into a passionate argument which Mara's husband eventually had to take care of.
Upon hearing of the sudden departure of the surviving Myrkr strike team members for the Unknown Regions, the Chiss grew alarmed and went to Chief of State Cal Omas, who in turn sent Luke, Mara, Han, and Leia after them. By the time they caught up with their runaways, they were stopped by the long-thought-dead Raynar Thul. Now the leader of a collective of nests of a bug species called the Killiks, 'UnuThul', as he called himself, refused to let them take back the Jedi. He explained that the nest needed them to fight off the Chiss, who were threatening a genocide on the Killiks for brushing borders with them.
After returning back home, Mara discovered that her son, Ben, had befriended a Killik from the Gorog nest, which was secretly trying to make the boy a Joiner with the nest. Mara, suspicious of the bug from the start, uncovered the plot and she was forced to kill the Killik. Before she did, however, it was uncovered that the nest seemed to know about her past with Palpatine and she had an internal struggle to deal with at seeing how upset Ben was at her battle with Gorog.
Some time later, Mara and Luke were brought before UnuThul and he declared them his enemies. Because he mistrusted them, UnuThul captured Luke and Han Solo and held them captive in an attempt to covertly get them to become Joiners. Leia and Mara formulated a rescue plan, but it was brought to a grinding halt as the nests fled the Utegetu Nebula, where they had been previously. The Gorog hive ship, however, could not escape and Luke ended up caught by Lomi Plo, the Unseen Queen. After a long battle, Lomi escaped and nearly succeeded in killing Luke, beginning what would come to be known as the Swarm War.
When Luke and Mara got back to Ossus, Luke sent out a Force-call to every Jedi in the galaxy, summoning them to assemble on Ossus. Mara was concerned for the blow this massive expending of Force energy was doing on his health, but supported him in it, and also his decision on what to do to stop the fighting within the Jedi Order. Mara was, in fact, the only one to know of Luke's plans before the meeting in which he announced himself Jedi Grand Master and took full control of the Order.
Some short time after this meeting, the Skywalkers were called to meet with UnuThul's parents, Tyko and
Aryn Thul, who tried to negotiate the safety of their son. Although the two couldn't guarantee Raynar's
survival, the merchant pair gave to the two Masters the droid R2-0, which happened to be the prototype version for the R2 series of astromech droid (which R2-D2 was). They had been searching for the omnigate contained within the prototype, which slicer Ghent said they needed to access the hidden files in R2's memory that contained holorecordings of Luke and Leia's parents.
One of the memories they were able to capture was critical to the couple, a holorecording of Anakin Skywalker choking Padmé Amidala. This proved to Luke that the suspicions the Dark Nest had been trying to plant in his mind that his wife had been his mother's killer were untrue. Tensions began to rise between the three as Luke and Mara found out that Jacen was not only undisturbed by the scenes, but that he had performed a memory wipe on their son.
After confronting him about this, Jacen fed them a lie about having done it to protect Ben and not to keep the secret of his fathering a child to Tenel Ka. Ultimately, they accepted this and they were, all in all, thankful to Jacen for being the one to get Ben to reopen himself to the Force.
The Battle of Sarm came and Mara was once again one of the Jedi involved, in a force attacking a Killik nest ship. She came upon the injured Jacen Solo and put out a great effort to rescue her nephew from the wreckage of his StealthX. Mara then went to protect Luke as he battled with Lomi Plo, and ended up recieving a bad injury caused when a shattergun pellet tore through her vac suit and destroyed one of her kidneys.
After the battle, she was in recovery for nearly a month and this prevented her from battling any further through the Swarm War and made her insanely antsy, especially when she learned of Luke's intentions to face UnuThul and Lomi Plo alone. Jacen, knowing his uncle had too many doubts inside him to survive such a battle, used the Force to fake his aunt's death to Luke's eyes to demonstrate how vulnerable the Jedi Master was to fear. It was this realization that gave Luke the strength to watch the hologram of his mother's death, which caused his doubts about Mara's innocence in the matter to leave him and made him ready for the battle.
Mara was still in recovery at the time, but learned a very short time later that Luke had been successful in killing Lomi Plo and bringing Raynar back safe.
Five seeming to be the favorite number for stints of peace, the next time we see any trouble brewing up in the Skywalker family is in 40 ABY, five years after the conclusion of the Swarm War. A civil war broke out between the Galactic Alliance and Corellia and of cousre the Solo-Skywalker clan were all up in it. Along with Jacen Solo, Mara's son Ben went to Agumar and uncovered a secret missle factory and this, along with other missions undertaken by the Jedi at the time, made Mara very nervous for the safety of her family. However Mara was still expected to (and did) participate, going with her husband undercover on a kidnapping mission meant for Head of State of Corellia, Thrackan Sal-Solo. While there, the two recovered Jaina's and Tahiri's teams and took them back to Coruscant.
While on Coruscant, Ben and Jacen were on an asteroid with Lumiya. Because of where they were and who they were with, Mara was forced to face a dark version of her son in a battle. She ended the fight by knocking the fake Ben unconscious and later they were reunited. As the Legacy series progressed, we saw Mara slowly lose her confidence in Jacen as he quickly fell to the dark side and Sith lordship. She and Luke tried their best to keep Ben away from him, worrying what kind of an influence the boy's cousin would have on him.
Mara, under the impression that Ben had killed Lumiya's daughter and that Lumiya was after him, went off to kill the Lady of the Sith. She failed, and instead ended up being killed by her own nephew, Jacen Solo, after a long duel which ended in his having to resort to projecting an image of her son in front of her and putting a poison dart in her leg.