| abstract | - The Covert Shroud Maneuver was an escape tactic developed by starship pilots to avoid being caught in a tractor beam. The maneuver called for the fleeing starship to eject a cloud of reflective particles that actually reflected the beam in various directions, allowing the starship to break free of the beam and escape. This resulted in a loop snarl in the tractor beam system, which shut the targeting system down completely. A variant of the maneuver was a last-ditch escape or infiltration plan. It employed a smaller ship hidden inside a larger one, obscuring the true mission of the smaller vessel. When the larger ship became caught by a tractor beam, the crew set the larger ship to auto-destruct, creating a cluster of reflective pieces that confused the tractor beam targeting system. This allowed the crew to escape in the smaller ship. This maneuver was popular during the reign of the Galactic Empire because it was virtually impossible to counteract. Grand Admiral Thrawn once assigned newly promoted Lieutenant Rejlii Mithel the objective of discovering a way to break it, after Mithel nearly recaptured Luke Skywalker's X-wing. When Lando Calrissian used the trick on a Star Destroyer 10 years later, the Star Destroyer countered it, implying that Mithel could have discovered the correct way to beat it.
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