Duel on Roqoo Depot

"Master Skywalker is not someone to be trifled with. You could be killed.''" "I'm aware of that. I have'' fought him before, you know."

- Alema Rar and Lumiya

The Duel on Roqoo Depot took place in the Hapes Cluster during the Confederation-Galactic Alliance War. It came about following a complex manipulation on the part of Jacen Solo, who had fallen under the sway of the dark side. It marked the first time Luke Skywalker dueled Lumiya since the Nagai-Tof War and the revelation to the New Jedi Order that the Dark Jedi Alema Rar had survived her battle with Leia Organa Solo on Tenupe four years ago, and was now working alongside Lumiya.

Prelude
"Jacen set us up."

- Mara Jade Skywalker

Jacen ordered Ben Skywalker, his Jedi apprentice, to wait at Roqoo Depot for his parents, Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker. He then sent his Sith mentor Lumiya to the same location so that either she would be killed, as he felt she was no longer useful, or Luke would die, allowing Solo to take over the Jedi Order. Lumiya saw through Jacen's lie that he was sending her there to collect Ben, and accepted her death. However she decided to make it count for something, and attached a baradium bomb to her life support girdle so that should she die, as she well expected to, Jacen would at least be aided by Luke's death. The Dark Jedi Alema Rar, following her own personal agenda, sided with Lumiya in order to bring pain and death to Luke and Mara, who had traveled to the depot so that they could rendezvous with their son. Due to extenuating circumstances on nearby Terephon, Ben was in fact not present.

Surprise attack
"Grenade!"

- Luke Skywalker

Luke and Mara waited in the depot's cantina for some time, but due to the interference of the Transitory Mists they were unable to contact their absent son. They made to leave on the Jade Shadow, intending to confront Jacen on his deception, aware that he could have been in Lumiya's thrall. However, as they made their way across the cantina their perception of danger in the Force became bolder, validated by the appearance of Alema Rar, hooded and unidentifiable in the mouth of the corridor, who threw a grenade at the pair of Jedi Masters. Luke used the Force to hurl the grenade back down the corridor, where it exploded, causing a hull breach and, more regrettably for him, injuring a dozen or so patrons. It served to seal the Skywalkers within the cantina and a short section of the corridor, and also to force them back into the cantina proper, where Lumiya awaited.

Enter the Dark Lady
"You! Lay down your blades and kneel.''" "''Not a chance."

- Lumiya and Luke Skywalker

At the mouth of the second exit Lumiya ignited her lightwhip and lashed it out towards the crowd, murdering one patron and maiming several others. Luke approached her, using the Force to move bystanders out of the way, and came face to face with Lumiya, shoto in one hand and lightsaber in the other. Meanwhile Mara moved silently up on the left, hidden among the crowd. However, Lumiya would not, as Luke realized, remain in one place. She struck a Duros who went for his blaster and attacked a Hapan woman. With these attacks she hoped, in conjunction with the Force, to turn the cantina patrons against the Jedi. At the urge of the dark side, the beings in the cantina pulled out weapons and came towards Luke. He was forced to use his lightsabers to redirect the blaster bolts back towards his unwitting assailants as he attempted to draw closer to Lumiya. The Jedi Master knew he had to keep Lumiya's minions at bay lest they crowd him and force him to kill.

Engagement
Mara neared her killing position behind Lumiya as Luke was swamped by the patrons. The Twi'lek owner of the bar, under Lumiya's influence, attempted to incite the mob against him, but Luke kicked the man aside and leapt at Lumiya with both blades. He had to keep her attention on him for as long as possible. But the Dark Lady of the Sith was skilled, delivering a counter which left Luke framed in the hatchway for the waiting Alema to kill him. Lumiya attempted to hold Luke in position, striking at him with her lightwhip and losing one of the strands to his shoto in the process, yet Alema did not fire. In service to her Balance, the Dark Jedi decided that to utterly destroy Luke Skywalker he would have to watch his wife die in front of him. Thus, as Lumiya acted masterfully to keep Luke in position for Alema, the Twi'lek Jedi waited in silence for a chance to kill Mara Jade. Soon Luke had parried Lumiya's attacks and forced her to retreat into the crowd.

Fateful decisions
As Lumiya brought patron after patron in front of her as human shields, Mara moved across the cantina and crouched in the doorway of the corridor in which Alema hid. Instead of simply firing her lethal dart at the Jedi, however, Alema made her second poor decision of the duel. She forced all her grief and anguish into Luke's Force presence while he fought Lumiya, knowing that he would turn in her direction just in time to witness the death of his beloved wife. Her prediction came true in part, although the results were not what she expected.

Instead of watching his wife die in front of him, Luke was able to warn Mara both verbally and through their unique Force-bond of her imminent peril. Mara dived out of the way at the last second and the dart went on to kill a hapless Twi'lek. Lumiya had been able to make some use of Alema's blunder, though. As Luke had turned to his wife, her lightwhip had lashed out and ensnared him, severing his artificial hand, badly burning and lacerating his chest. Mara knew she had to neutralize the dart-blower before they could strike again; she was confident enough in the legendary ability of her husband to leave him to face Lumiya alone for the time being.

Alema vs. Jade
Jade Skywalker headed through the chaotic throng of fleeing patrons up the corridor in the hunt for her unknown attacker. She was almost killed as the dart-blower struck, dark blue lightsaber in hand, but the presence of a salt-drunk Arcona saved Mara's life and lost him his own instead. Jade spun with her shoto without thinking, deeply scarring Alema's intact lekku. It was only then, as she came face to face with the former Jedi that she realized her attacker's identity. In her shock she almost failed to defend herself as the Twi'lek brought her lightsaber in at shoulder height, but Jade was able to parry and force Alema to leap backwards into the middle of the corridor. Thankfully for Mara, the patrons hanged back from this duel. She hurled herself forward after Alema spurned her offer of amnesty and attacked with both blades, intending to impale Alema through the torso with her shoto.

Jade had underestimated the Twi'lek, who dropped her lightsaber and speared her talons into the Jedi Master's neck, preparing to unleash a burst of Force lightning. Mara managed to dodge it at the last second and sweep the Twi'lek's legs out from underneath her with a scissor kick. Alema's head hit the floor and she fell instantly unconscious. Mara made to kill the Twi'lek, as Alema was far too dangerous an enemy to be left alive, but relented at the last moment. Instead she bound the Dark Jedi, in the process discovering the baradium bomb attached to Alema's chest. She could not return to help Luke without disarming the bomb.

Lumiya's triumph
"You can't have&hellip;Jacen."

- Luke Skywalker to Lumiya

Luke had not fared well under Lumiya's punishing assault. Badly wounded, his shoto lost with his artificial hand among the debris, reaction times slowed by pain, and forced to constantly intervene for the innocents Lumiya was trying to kill, Luke was drawing heavily on the Force. In a brash attack he lunged at her across a claqball table, but the Sith Lady pulled a waitress in front of her. Luke halted his leap and landed in front of Lumiya, ducking beneath the arc of her lightwhip and Force-pushing her across the room. She stood up, hostage again protecting her, but Luke tore the girl from her grasp and sent her across the room to safety.

Luke leapt back onto the claqball table and ensnared the lightwhip's cords with his blade, attempting to use his strength to yank it from her grasp. Weakened by his injuries Skywalker was unable to carry out his tactic. The lightwhip instead tore his weapon from his hand. He rolled backwards of the table to safety, only to fall on top of a dead spacer. Lumiya, expecting a trap, waited on the other side of the table, and called out to Luke to surrender.

Endgame
"You'll never make a Sith of my son!"

- Luke Skywalker

As Lumiya taunted Luke with the possibility that it was his son, not Jacen, who had been helping her, (most of her actions throughout the duel had been an attempt to hide her true role as Jacen's mentor behind the illusion of a vengeance-obsessed murderess), Luke searched desperately for his shoto. But Lumiya's taunts began to make sense, distracting him, and as she rounded the table he found a blaster in the holster of the dead spacer he had fallen upon. It was then that Lumiya seemingly declared her true goal; to turn Ben to the dark side of the force. Luke raised his head in anger to shout out at the Dark Lady; unable to duck the tendrils of her lightwhip in time he simply let himself fall backwards, raising the blaster and allowing the Force to direct his aim. He put five shots into Lumiya before she hit the ground.

Mara arrived as Luke stood over his downed foe. He told the badly wounded Sith that Mara would come to help her, but his wife arrived and urged him to flee, showing him the bomb attached to Lumiya's chest, connecting to the sensor over her failing heart. Two minutes after Luke and Mara left the cantina the baradium bomb detonated.

Aftermath
Lumiya did in fact survive and returned to The Home to recuperate. It would be some weeks before she was able to continue in her role as Jacen's mentor. Alema also escaped, making her targets the Solos, but not before she disabled the Jade Shadow and traveled to see Jacen over Hapes. There she informed him of Lumiya's apparent demise, and, in accordance with her belief in the Balance, persuaded him that it was necessary to fire on his parents in the Millennium Falcon. He abstained from killing her due to her knowledge of Allana's true parentage - he could not take the risk that she had not prepared a failsafe distribution of the news in the event of her death.

Luke and Mara confronted Jacen over the whole affair, though he was able to mask his involvement by claiming he had thought Ben would be present. This was not in fact a lie, and Luke could sense this. However he was suspicious enough to move Ben away from the Galactic Alliance Guard and Jacen. Later his lost artificial hand would be replaced, though he felt that his body had almost reached a communion with the first, and thus his lightsaber skill was perhaps slightly diminished. Lumiya, Alema, Luke and Mara would meet again in combat only a short time later during the Battle of Gilatter VIII.

Appearances

 * Tempest
 * Exile

Notes and references
Duelo en el Depósito Roqoo