The confrontation known as the Duel on Roqoo Depot transpired on a refueling and resupply station situated within the Hapes Cluster, amidst the turmoil of the Second Galactic Civil War. This event was orchestrated through a series of intricate machinations by Jacen Solo, who had succumbed to the influence of the dark side. Viewing his Sith mentor, Lumiya, as having served her purpose, and believing that eliminating Luke Skywalker, the leader of the Jedi Order, would weaken the Jedi, Solo dispatched Lumiya to Roqoo Depot. Simultaneously, he informed Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker that their son would meet them at that location. Accompanying Lumiya was the Twi'lek Dark Jedi Alema Rar, an adversary of the Jedi Order who was believed to have died during the Battle of Tenupe four years prior. Driven by her vendetta against the Skywalkers, Rar had formed an alliance of convenience with Lumiya, and both women journeyed to Roqoo Depot equipped with fail-safe baradium bombs attached to their bodies, designed to explode upon their demise.
Lumiya and Rar launched their ambush against the Skywalker Masters within the depot's cantina, a setting that proved challenging for the Jedi due to the need to protect the cantina's civilian occupants. As Luke Skywalker fought Lumiya amidst the crowd, his wife engaged Alema Rar in a nearby corridor. The separation of the combatants prevented mutual assistance, allowing Lumiya to inflict a serious wound on Skywalker with her lightwhip, while Rar was quickly subdued and incapacitated by Jade Skywalker. Jade Skywalker swiftly worked to disable Rar's fail-safe bomb as Lumiya pressed her advantage against the weakened Grand Master, attempting to distract him with taunts and claims of corrupting his son to the dark side. When Skywalker used a discarded blaster to inflict a severe injury on Lumiya, ending their duel, his wife was able to warn him about the Sith Lady's baradium explosive, enabling the two Jedi Masters to escape the cantina. Upon the explosive's detonation two minutes later, Lumiya was presumed dead. However, the Sith Lady survived and recovered, later returning to battle weeks afterward. The New Jedi Order received news of Alema Rar's survival, although Jacen Solo successfully deceived his aunt and uncle into believing that his intentions in sending them to Roqoo Depot were genuine.
In the year 40 ABY, after lying dormant for decades, Dark Lady of the Sith Lumiya emerged from the shadows and initiated a scheme to contact Jedi Knight Jacen Solo with the purpose of training him to become the next Sith Lord. Solo consented, driven by the conviction that he could bring unity to the galaxy. A rapidly escalating civil conflict between the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances and the Five Worlds of the Corellian system was underway, effectively shattering the peace that had prevailed since the conclusion of the Swarm War four years before. A key element of Lumiya's strategy involved neutralizing, or at least weakening, the New Jedi Order, led by Grand Master Luke Skywalker, to pave the way for Solo's ascent to power. Skywalker, along with his wife, Mara, grew increasingly wary of Solo's actions and concerned about his influence over their son, Ben Skywalker, and recognized what he perceived as Lumiya's renewed animosity toward him and his family. Lumiya, despite her identity as an Imperial agent, had once been romantically involved with Luke Skywalker in 4 ABY. Their relationship ended when Skywalker later left her scarred and disfigured during the war. Consequently, the Jedi Master assumed that Lumiya's motivations were rooted in vengeance and hatred.
Certain factions within the Corellian government, seeking to expand their alliances in the war against the Galactic Alliance, chose to support a plot devised by dissident Hapan nobles to assassinate Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo of the Hapes Cluster. Jacen Solo, both as a friend of Djo and a colonel in the Galactic Alliance Guard, traveled to Hapes with a fleet of warships to safeguard the Queen Mother. Solo reasoned that by setting Lumiya against his aunt and uncle, he would benefit regardless of the outcome. Either Lumiya, whom he distrusted and considered to have outlived her usefulness, would be eliminated, or Luke Skywalker would be killed, leaving the New Jedi Order without leadership as he consolidated his power. Solo informed the Skywalkers that their son would be present on Roqoo Depot, a refueling and repair station located in the Transitory Mists of the Hapes Cluster, and then dispatched Lumiya to the same location. Solo also directed Ben Skywalker to travel to the depot, unaware that the young Jedi was diverted to the nearby planet Terephon to rescue his cousin Jaina Solo. Meanwhile, Solo engaged the Hapan nobles and their Corellian allies.
However, Solo had not anticipated all possibilities. In recent weeks, Lumiya had been collaborating with the Twi'lek Dark Jedi Alema Rar, an enemy of the Jedi Order who had been presumed dead since the final battle of the Swarm War. Rar, driven by her own motives for attacking the Skywalkers, whom she believed had wronged her, opportunistically aligned herself with Lumiya to achieve her objectives. Lumiya, a woman trained in the ways of the Sith, had also discerned Solo's true intentions in sending her to Roqoo Depot. Realizing that he intended for her to either kill Luke Skywalker or be killed herself, she prepared for the latter possibility. Stealing baradium explosives from Solo's flagship, Lumiya rigged a fail-safe device that would detonate the powerful explosive upon her death, ensuring that Skywalker would perish alongside her. Despite Rar's objections, the Dark Lady also equipped the Twi'lek with an identical bomb. Together, Lumiya and the Twi'lek traveled to Roqoo Depot and prepared to ambush the Skywalkers, who were awaiting their son in the space station's cantina. Having discovered that their son was absent and unable to contact him due to the depot's location within the Transitory Mists, which disrupted communications technology, the Skywalkers realized that their nephew had deceived them. Intending to confront Solo about his deception, the two Jedi Masters prepared to depart on their personal starship, the Jade Shadow.
As the Skywalkers exited the cantina, Alema Rar, cloaked and unrecognizable, appeared at the end of the corridor and launched a grenade toward them. Luke Skywalker employed the Force to hurl the grenade back down the corridor, where it detonated, causing a hull breach and injuring several patrons. Rar's attack had effectively trapped the Skywalkers within the cantina and a small section of the corridor. At the entrance to the cantina's second exit, Lumiya activated her lightwhip and lashed out at the crowd, killing one patron and injuring others. The Skywalkers separated to confront the Dark Lady, with the Grand Master approaching her directly, wielding a shoto in one hand and a lightsaber in the other, while his wife moved stealthily from the side, concealed within the crowd. Lumiya began to use the dark side of the Force to turn the frightened cantina patrons against Luke Skywalker. Soon, the Grand Master was forced to deflect blaster bolts non-lethally as he attempted to close the distance with Lumiya.
While Mara Jade Skywalker approached her attack position behind Lumiya, her husband was continually hampered by the patrons. The Twi'lek owner of the bar, under Lumiya's influence, attempted to incite the crowd against Skywalker, forcing the Grand Master to incapacitate the man and engage Lumiya directly in an attempt to distract her for as long as possible. Lumiya, similarly, was trying to delay Skywalker until Alema Rar, hidden in one of the cantina's corridors, could eliminate him with a poisonous dart fired from her blowgun. Although Lumiya successfully positioned Skywalker for Rar's shot, the Twi'lek refused to fire, instead wanting to kill Mara first to inflict emotional pain on the Grand Master. Ultimately, Skywalker parried Lumiya's attacks and forced her to retreat into the crowd, preventing Rar from getting a clear shot.
As Lumiya and Skywalker continued to battle among the cantina patrons, Mara repositioned herself, moving into the doorway of the corridor where Rar was hiding. Rar began projecting all of her grief and anguish into Luke's Force perceptions while he fought Lumiya, hoping that he would turn to protect his wife just in time to witness her death. However, instead of watching Mara die, the Grand Master was able to warn her, both verbally and through their unique Force bond, of her impending danger, and Mara evaded the dart in time. Lumiya took limited advantage of Rar's mistake by burning Luke's chest and severing his artificial hand with her lightwhip. Rather than assisting her husband, whom she believed could withstand Lumiya despite his injuries, Mara decided to locate Lumiya's ally. She moved through the fleeing patrons up the corridor and was nearly killed when Rar attacked, wielding a dark blue lightsaber. Mara reacted instinctively, scarring Rar's remaining lek as she spun away from the Twi'lek's attack.
Mara's shock at seeing Rar for the first time in years gave the Dark Jedi an advantage. Rar immediately pressed the attack, forcing the Jedi Master to defend herself. After Mara pushed Rar back, the two combatants faced each other. Mara's offer of amnesty was rejected by Rar, and they resumed their duel. The Twi'lek's unexpected tactic of dropping her lightsaber and attempting to impale her talons into her opponent's neck in preparation for a lethal burst of Force lightning caught the Jedi by surprise. Mara was able to evade the attack at the last moment and force Rar to the ground with a scissor kick. The Twi'lek lost consciousness and was restrained by Mara, who refused to kill her enemy for moral reasons. As she did so, Mara discovered the baradium bomb attached to the Twi'lek's chest and immediately began to disarm it.
While Mara attempted to defuse the warhead, her husband drew more heavily on the Force in his effort to avoid death at Lumiya's hands. Forced to intervene for the sake of the patrons whom Lumiya continually placed in harm's way, Luke decided to go on the offensive. Lumiya took another hostage to prevent the Grand Master's advance, disrupting his attack as Luke withdrew to protect the bystander. After using the Force to free the hostage from Lumiya's grasp, Luke attempted to disarm Lumiya by wrapping the cords of her lightwhip around his own lightsaber blade. However, in his weakened state, he was unable to prevent the Dark Lady from wrenching his lightsaber from his grasp. Stumbling back behind a claqball table, Luke desperately searched for a weapon to continue the duel. As Lumiya taunted her opponent with the possibility that it was his son, rather than his nephew, who had been helping her, Luke became distracted. She approached and suggested that she was turning Luke's son to the dark side of the Force, as the Grand Master retrieved a blaster from the holster of a dead spacer and raised his head above the claqball table. Lumiya struck with her lightwhip, but Luke dodged the weapon's tendrils and fired the blaster. Five of the bolts struck Lumiya, and she collapsed to the floor, severely wounded. As Luke stood over the Dark Lady and offered her medical assistance, Mara, who had successfully disarmed Rar's bomb, rushed over and hurried her husband out of the cantina before Lumiya's own fail-safe warhead could detonate.
The two Jedi Masters fled the cantina moments before the baradium explosive detonated. They presumed Lumiya dead, although she survived and returned to her asteroid retreat to recover. Several weeks passed before she could resume her role as Jacen Solo's mentor. Alema Rar also escaped, sabotaging the Jade Shadow and traveling to meet with Solo over Hapes. Believing that Solo's ambitions to become a Sith would serve her goal of inflicting pain on Han and Leia Organa Solo, Rar warned Lumiya's apprentice of the Skywalkers' anger and their suspicion that Solo had set them up. By doing so, she ensured that Solo's secret remained hidden, as the aspiring Sith was able to claim that he had genuinely believed that Ben Skywalker would be present at Roqoo Depot and that Lumiya must have learned of the Skywalkers' visit. However, Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker remained suspicious enough to attempt to distance their son from Solo.
Skywalker's loss of his artificial hand was temporary, as he quickly obtained a replacement, although he felt that his body had almost achieved a connection with the first, leading the Grand Master to believe that his lightsaber skill was slightly diminished. The wounds inflicted by Lumiya's lightwhip on his torso, however, took longer to heal, and Jacen Solo exploited Skywalker's injuries when the two engaged in a duel later in the war. The revelation that Rar was alive, despite being presumed dead at the end of the Swarm War, prompted the New Jedi Order to create a specialized task force to neutralize the Twi'lek as a threat. All four Roqoo Depot combatants encountered each other in combat shortly afterward during the Battle of Gilatter VIII; only one, Luke Skywalker, survived the Second Galactic Civil War.
The Duel on Roqoo Depot was penned by Troy Denning as the climax of Legacy of the Force: Tempest, the third book in the Legacy of the Force series. Denning, known for drafting lightsaber duels multiple times to capture the emotion and imagery of the sequence, has been praised by fans for his fight scenes. The Duel on Roqoo Depot was significant in Expanded Universe continuity because it marked the first lightsaber battle between Luke Skywalker and Lumiya since the Skirmish on Kinooine, featured in Star Wars (1977) 96, released in June 1985 by Marvel Comics. While thirty-six in-universe years separated the Duel on Kinooine and the Duel on Roqoo Depot, Tempest was published twenty-one years after Marvel Comics depicted the first clash between the two opponents. However, Mara Jade Skywalker was revealed in Abel G. Peña's 2001 article The Emperor's Pawns to have fought Lumiya previously on Caprioril, between the in-universe years of 4.5 ABY and 9 ABY.