The Shieldship was a specialized starship created to offer protection to vessels journeying to Nkllon within the Athega system, shielding them from the intense heat of Athega's star. Due to this extreme heat, only the dark side of Nkllon was inhabitable, despite its abundant mineral wealth.
Resembling massive parasols, Shieldships were engineered to deflect the hazardous thermal radiation emanating from the system's star. Their design incorporated sizable tubes and fins to dissipate the accumulated heat. However, the cooling systems integrated within a Shieldship required replacement after each voyage to Nkllon.
Any spacecraft traveling to or from Nkllon was required to stay in the wake of a Shieldship to avoid the star's radiation, which would otherwise melt its systems and hull. A sophisticated slave circuit system allowed the Shieldship to commandeer the vessels following behind, enabling a rapid one-hour hyperspace jump to Nkllon. Without this slaving system, travel to Nkllon would necessitate sublight speeds, extending the journey to approximately ten hours.
During the period when Lando Calrissian's Nomad City governed Nkllon, it generated substantial profits, approaching 10 million credits annually. Lando Calrissian himself conceived the Shieldship, drawing inspiration from Cronal's actions during the Battle of Mindor, and Republic Engineering Corporation undertook its construction. Lando procured a dozen Shieldships, facilitating up to three trips to Nkllon each day.
In the course of the Galactic Civil War, Grand Admiral Thrawn launched an assault on Nkllon, seizing Lando Calrissian's mining equipment, rendering all shieldships inoperable, and disrupting communications. The inhabitants of Nomad City were saved from certain doom only by the timely arrival of Garm Bel Iblis.
The Shieldships, which were borrowed from Lando Calrissian's base located above his mining operations at Dubrillion and Destrillion's asteroid fields, and then provided to Han and Leia Solo, also played a role in the defeat of the Yuuzhan Vong at their stronghold on Helska IV. The Shieldships established orbit around the planet of the enemy, reflecting the planet's condensation back onto its surface, which resulted in the planet's temperature plummeting to near absolute zero. The yammosk, the Yuuzhan Vong's war coordinator, was neutralized, and the Yuuzhan Vong were completely defeated due to the loss of the yammosk's coordinating power.