A Shroud served as a defensive technology installed on certain space vessels. Its purpose was to disrupt and misdirect the tracking mechanism of a tractor beam, thereby allowing a spacecraft to break free from the beam's grasp. This device was essentially a wave-layered explosive, filled with particles designed to reflect intensely, which would disrupt the tracking lock, likely by overwhelming the tractor beam's sensory equipment.
It was also possible to create a shroud in an ad-hoc manner, an instance of which was exhibited by Han Solo during the confrontation between the Hand of Judgment and the Reprisal above Gepparin. Han Solo and the Hand of Judgment found themselves ensnared in a tractor beam's tether, emitted from the Reprisal, while aboard the Melnor Spear. Han directed Chewbacca to carry out a plan where Chewbacca, piloting the Millennium Falcon, obliterated a TIE/LN starfighter that was moving on a flight path similar to the Melnor Spear. Subsequently, Han piloted the Melnor Spear in such a way that the resultant cloud of wreckage from the destroyed TIE fighter interfered with the Reprisal's ability to maintain its tractor-beam lock. The lock having been broken, the Melnor Spear was then able to evade being recaptured by the tractor beam, a result of Han Solo's piloting skills, and successfully fled.