Rejlii Mithel, a Human male, was a Galactic Empire weapons technician. This individual, skilled in the art of weaponry, was the offspring of the renowned Imperial TIE pilot known as "Mauler" Mithel, who died valiantly during the Battle of Yavin. Shortly after concluding his training in 0 ABY, Rejlii Mithel received his assignment as a tractor beam operator aboard the Imperial-class Star Destroyer called the Chimaera. During a battle above the planet Poln Major, he played a crucial role in preventing the Chimaera from being destroyed by the alien warlord Nuso Esva, who had sabotaged the Star Destroyer. Mithel, utilizing his expertise with the tractor beam, successfully executed a strategy conceived on the spot by Senior Captain Thrawn to divert the Imperial warship from a collision course with a Golan I platform positioned above Poln Major.
By 9 ABY, Ensign Mithel remained stationed on the Chimaera, continuing his duties as a tractor beam operator. In that year, he was tasked with the capture of Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker as the Jedi made his escape from the planet Poderis aboard a Class 720 freighter. However, just as Mithel established a lock on the freighter, the Jedi managed to launch an X-wing starfighter, which had been secretly hidden inside the larger vessel, and employed a covert shroud maneuver to evade capture. Despite the absence of a known countermeasure to this maneuver, the Ensign attempted to ensnare the X-wing, but the tractor beam malfunctioned, allowing Skywalker to escape. Mithel reported this failure to Grand Admiral Thrawn, who acknowledged the operator's inventive effort. Thrawn commended Mithel for his quick thinking, promoted him to the rank of lieutenant, and assigned him the responsibility of developing an effective defense against the covert shroud.
Rejlii Mithel, a male Human, served the Galactic Empire in their armed forces as a weapons technician, with a focus on operating tractor beams. His father was a TIE pilot who died during the Battle of Yavin, and kept a hologram of a young Rejlii on the control yoke of his TIE fighter. By the time 0 ABY arrived, Mithel the younger had finished his training and was assigned to the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Chimaera, operating its tractor beam. During that year, the Chimaera was sabotaged by the alien warlord Nuso Esva during a battle in the Poln system, sending it on a crash course with a Golan I platform orbiting the planet Poln Major. After the Chimaera's captain was killed, Commander Gilad Pellaeon took command of the warship, and, with the help of Senior Captain Thrawn, Esva's Imperial rival, worked to prevent the impending collision.
Thrawn came up with a plan to use the Chimaera's tractor beams and his transport, the light freighter Lost Reef, to change the Star Destroyer's course. With the Chimaera in its predicament, Mithel was the only available tractor beam operator, making him responsible for putting the plan into action. Mithel successfully used the Star Destroyer's tractor beam to snare the Lost Reef, repeatedly pulling in and releasing the smaller vessel. Mithel's handling of Thrawn's strategy, due to the nature of the tractor beam, allowed both the Star Destroyer and the freighter to move to their shared center of mass, which gradually shifted the Chimaera away from its collision path. With the collision avoided, the warship was able to rejoin the Imperial forces in driving off Nuso Esva.
Ensign Mithel continued his service aboard the Chimaera, operating the tractor beam. By 9 ABY, Thrawn, now a Grand Admiral, initiated a military campaign against the New Republic following the fragmentation of the Empire five years before. He used the Chimaera as his flagship. As part of his campaign, Thrawn set a trap on the planet Poderis for Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, a hero of the New Republic, with the intent of capturing the Jedi. Skywalker escaped the Imperial forces on the planet and fled into space aboard a Class 720 freighter, where Thrawn and the Chimaera were waiting. Ensign Mithel was assigned the responsibility of capturing the Jedi.
Mithel, working from the starboard crew pit on the bridge, prepared to ensnare Skywalker's freighter with a tractor beam before he could escape the system. However, Skywalker was ready for this. He used a covert shroud maneuver, activating the ship's self-destruct and launching in an X-wing starfighter from a modified cargo bay just as the tractor beam locked onto the freighter. When the ship exploded, the tractor beam couldn't handle the large amount of debris, so Mithel improvised. The Ensign tried to counter Skywalker's maneuver by quickly changing the beam's settings to lock onto the X-wing, but the attempt failed and the tractor beam froze. While the Chimaera opened fire on the X-wing, Skywalker was able to jump to hyperspace. Knowing he had failed, Mithel expected to be executed for letting Skywalker escape, as he had recently seen Thrawn execute Cris Pieterson for a similar failure. Nonetheless, the tractor beam operator calmly explained what happened when questioned by the Grand Admiral, noting that he was not prepared for a covert shroud maneuver.
Instead of punishing the Ensign, Thrawn praised Mithel for his quick thinking and innovative attempt to counter Skywalker's tactic, promoting Mithel to the rank of lieutenant and tasking him with finding an effective response to the covert shroud. Surprised by this turn of events, Mithel accepted the assignment. The new lieutenant analyzed the covert shroud maneuver, looking for a way to defeat it, and eventually concluded that his method would have worked if the control computer of his tractor beam had been modified to handle the sensor signals from multiple trac-reflective particles. Mithel prepared a message for the Grand Admiral, describing the covert shroud maneuver and his findings, and requesting a skilled computer technician to reprogram a tractor beam's control computer to test his theory. The New Republic later intercepted Mithel's transmission.
Mithel's efforts eventually paid off, providing the Empire with a standard way to counter the covert shroud. In 19 ABY, Lando Calrissian tried to use the gambit to escape the Star Destroyer Relentless, only to be shocked when the shroud was quickly dissipated and the tractor lock on Calrissian's yacht, the Lady Luck, was re-established just as quickly, leaving him no choice but to surrender. The con artist Flim, disguised as a resurrected Grand Admiral Thrawn, explained to Calrissian that the Empire had had plenty of time since Skywalker's escape from Poderis to develop a countermeasure for his escape tactic.
Rejlii Mithel, with fair skin and black hair, was an energetic and courageous officer dedicated to serving the Empire. He represented the kind of talented individual Thrawn wanted to build a renewed Empire with. During the battle in the Poln system in 0 ABY, Mithel's skill with the tractor beam allowed him to successfully use Thrawn's improvised tactic, saving the Chimaera from destruction. He later reported on the Star Destroyer's status with a boldness that surprised Pellaeon, since Mithel was just a crewer, not a bridge officer.
Years later, Mithel continued to work as one of the Chimaera's tractor beam operators, and he was tasked with capturing Jedi Luke Skywalker above Poderis in 9 ABY. He tried to counter Skywalker's covert shroud maneuver by changing his tractor beam's mode, a quick improvisation that ultimately failed to capture the Jedi. Mithel feared execution for this failure, as another tractor beam operator had been executed a few months earlier for failing to capture Skywalker. Despite this fear, Mithel calmly explained his actions to Grand Admiral Thrawn, who knew that no effective countermeasure to the covert shroud had ever been developed. Impressed by the Ensign's effort and potential, the Grand Admiral rewarded the tractor beam operator with a promotion and a new assignment to use his creativity to develop a successful response to the covert shroud maneuver. Mithel eventually determined that his tactic would have worked if his tractor beam's control computer had been programmed to handle trac-reflective particles.
Author Timothy Zahn created Lieutenant Mithel for The Last Command, the 1993 conclusion to his Thrawn Trilogy. In 1994, The Last Command Sourcebook gave Mithel a first name and a visual depiction, along with roleplaying statistics for use in Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. He also appeared in a condensed version of his scene from the novel in the first issue of The Last Command comic adaptation, which was released on November 26, 1997. After the character went without another appearance for over a decade, Timothy Zahn included Mithel as a minor character in his 2011 novel, Choices of One.