A cloaking shadow was a type of tracking beacon attached to a starship's transponder, allowing other vessels to follow it.
Typically, it would be used to track a ship covertly, as was the case with the beacon which Obi-Wan Kenobi placed aboard Slave I to track it from Kamino to Geonosis. Because the tracking signal was closely paired to the ship's own transponder beacon, it was often hard for the crew of the ship aboard which it had been placed to spot the "shadow" transmission.
The term was also applied to a device used by the Yuuzhan Vong aboard their Yorik-stronha spyships, perhaps connected with their role as covert spearhead ships to guide in invasion fleets.
The use of a "cloaking shadow" aboard the Yorik-stronha is indicated in the The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology; it is assumed here that this refers to a beacon, but in this context, the term may instead describe a sort of Yuuzhan Vong cloaking device.
The use of a "cloaking shadow" aboard the Yorik-stronha is indicated in the The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology; it is assumed here that this refers to a beacon, but in this context, the term may instead describe a sort of Yuuzhan Vong cloaking device.