Name: Mara Jade (aka Emperor's Hand)
Age: 24
Species: Human
Gender: Female
Homeworld: Unknown
Major Skills:
Force User - Outside of Skywalker himself, she is likely the strongest young Force user in the galaxy.
Pilot - If it has an engine, she can drive or fly it, and drive or fly it at an elite level.
Repair - Whether weapons or starships Mara has been trained to be a self-sufficient operative in all facets.
Slicer - Not elite level, but capable of slicing most security systems to get in or out of jams.
Infiltration - Trained primarily as an assassin, Mara has a frightening skillset to match.
Weapons - Heavy, light, or melee it just doesn't matter. She's been extensively trained in their usage.
Pilot - If it has an engine, she can drive or fly it, and drive or fly it at an elite level.
Repair - Whether weapons or starships Mara has been trained to be a self-sufficient operative in all facets.
Slicer - Not elite level, but capable of slicing most security systems to get in or out of jams.
Infiltration - Trained primarily as an assassin, Mara has a frightening skillset to match.
Weapons - Heavy, light, or melee it just doesn't matter. She's been extensively trained in their usage.
Primary Equipment:
Lightsaber - Self built, magenta colored blade.
Blaster - A variety; BlasTech DL-44 and square nosed holdout blaster being favorites.
Droids - Most notably a protocal droid; K3.
Ships
Blaster - A variety; BlasTech DL-44 and square nosed holdout blaster being favorites.
Droids - Most notably a protocal droid; K3.
Ships
The Vengeance - Super Star Destroyer. Current mobile base of operations.
The Nebula - Massive, modified, cargo ship. Currently hidden.
Fighter - Her personal, modified, Z-95 Headhunter. Currently docked aboard the Nebula.
The Nebula - Massive, modified, cargo ship. Currently hidden.
Fighter - Her personal, modified, Z-95 Headhunter. Currently docked aboard the Nebula.
Force Sensitive: Yes. Jedi Knight/Darth level Force user.
Biography:
Mara Jade doesn't know where she comes from. She doesn't know who her parents were. Some Imperial records suggest it may have been a Jedi cut down in the Jedi Purge, but the truth will likely never be known--and that doesn't seem to bother Mara all that much. She remembers next to nothing about her early childhood before the Emperor, before her training. Her life has three main phases to it: her training, her days as Emperor's Hand, and her current role as Dark Jedi enforcer for the remains of the Empire.
Her early training can best be called torturous. Physically and mentally pushed to her limit, every single day. Conditioned to use her brain as much as her physical talents. It was a childhood of no joy, but to even call it a childhood would be misleading. The Emperor had no interest in treating children as children. They were tools to shape and forge for future use; and there was no future tool that he held higher hopes for than Mara Jade. She would be his agent, his assassin, his Hand.
Later training went even further, and really Mara considers this period began when she was eight years old, the first time she took another life. The Emperor made certain she understood the gains that the Empire had brought upon the galaxy, that the Empire's imposed order had made the galactic economies boon like never before in the Republic to which he was once Senator, and then Chancellor, for. When possible he let her know the virtues of the Empire, and the sins of the Republic. "Order, versus Chaos."
When she became Hand, somehow her life became even more secretive. She was set loose on the galaxy, with no supervision, and the Emperor's gamble paid off. Every time she was given a task, and was told to get it done. She was never told how, she was never given any help beyond the resources already available to her, but it was always enough. She never failed. Eventually her training grew more adversarial, the Emperor having her train against Vader. It was, Mara thought, a way to both prove to Vader she was no threat to him, yet remind him that he was training another. The Emperor's constant control through manipulation, playing multiple people off each other.
But Mara saw cracks. Something about Vader seemed unsettling for her; a beaten down man from pain that went far beyond the state of his body and torment of his armor. Yet the Emperor didn't appear to question his mastery of his Apprentice. Mara was less certain, and nearly argued that she be sent to assist Tarkin instead of Vader. When the Emperor mentioned Vader and Skywalker's relationship to her after the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the first Death Star, Mara had visions of the end of the Emperor. She began to prepare.
When the Emperor died at Vader's hands, Mara knew immediately. The Emperor ordered her at his last moments to kill Skywalker, but in the great tradition of Dark Jedi she betrayed her master by ignoring his last command. She flew to the SSD Vengeance aboard her Headhunter and transmitted Imperial docking codes. The Fleet Admiral in command of the vessel summoned her to demand the nature of her Imperial clearance, to demand she explain just who and what she was. She made her statement without a word; ripping blasters from his guards, and cutting them down even as she Force choked the life out of him. The Fleet Admiral's second-in-command was a former contact she had worked with before; he knew who she was. He knew if the stories of the Emperor and Vader's death were true, the Empire would need Mara Jade. He pledged his loyalty to her, and give her full command of the Vengeance.
The Emperor's Hand public, with a small fleet at her command, was enough to send shockwaves through the Imperial elite that provided "push back" from the shockwaves from the Emperor and Vader's deaths. Immediately every governor and Moff in the Empire began to communicate with her. In short time, she was appointed to the newly created Ruling Council, as various Imperial leaders began to court her favor, or plot against her. Her attention was spent on those plotting against her; plotters that began mysteriously dying in any number of ways, like the galaxy's foremost assassin had begun going back to work.
The Empire was order, the Republic was chaos; well meaning but ultimately bad for the general good. She was a force for that order, for that ultimate good. And she would commit herself to ensuring the Galactic Empire survived. Yet a chance encounter with Luke Skywalker has sowed seeds of doubt in Mara's mind; what if the Empire wasn't the force for ultimate order that she believed? What if there was a better way? What if instead of an instrument used for the greater good, she had been used as a tool for the Emperor's personal evil?
For now, her concern remains the survival of the Empire.