Mils Giel Mils Giel was a lieutenant in the Imperial Navy . With relatives who had been serving Emperor Palpatine since 19 BBY , Giel became an admiral in the Navy , and personally oversaw the creation of the largest armada in Imperial history . He was called upon by Palpatine to transport a rare teezl — a giant life - form capable of transmitting electronic information at the speed of thought — to Imperial Center . While in transit , his flagship was attacked by Alliance pilots , and the teezl was destroyed . For his failure , Giel was demoted to lieutenant by Supreme Commander Darth Vader , and was dispatched to investigate the abandoned Alliance base on Golrath . While there , he discovered that Golrath Station ' s curious crystal walls had somehow recorded the activities of the Rebels while at the base , but before he could demonstrate his findings to Vader , the station was destroyed by the Rebels themselves . Fleeing to Beheboth with his aide , Malka , Giel spent five years trying to transform the native Tirrith into a powerful bioweapon , with the aid of Malka and the Quarren scientist Kimp Minmirn . He succeeded , and created a considerable amount of carnage on Beheboth before departing the planet . Biography . An admiral in the Imperial Navy , Mils Giel had friends in high places — his great - uncle had served the Empire since its formation . Giel was the catalyst for the creation of a new Imperial armada , which , when completed , was the largest in Imperial history . In order to keep its existence a secret , the armada was sent to a secret location at the edge of the galaxy . While there , Giel established his dominance over the other Imperial officers present . In 3 ABY , reports came through that the Alliance to Restore the Republic had attacked Spindrift Station , where they stole coded data that revealed the armada ' s location . One of the armada ' s colonels saw fit to suggest to the admiral that he was not showing enough concern over the Spindrift attack , which provoked Giel into launching a tirade against his subordinate . The admiral was unfazed by the possibility of an Alliance attack , and believed that even if they did move against him , they would be no match for his armada . Loss of the teezl . Shortly afterward , Imperial troops discovered a teezl in the Outer Rim Territories . A large non - sentient creature , and the only known one of its kind , the teezl had the ability to transmit electronically supplied information at the speed of thought to any kind of receptor . It was hoped that , once installed on Imperial Center , the teezl would allow the Empire to communicate with any one of its agents in the galaxy instantaneously , giving them an advantage over the Alliance . So important was the teezl , that Emperor Palpatine ordered Giel to dedicate his whole armada to transporting the creature . The admiral ' s men were able to set up a transport cage for the teezl aboard his flagship — Giel was satisfied with the device , and he intended to make sure that nothing untoward happened to the creature , lest he earn Palpatine ' s wrath . As the armada traveled towards Imperial Center , suddenly , Major Voss ' ship began firing on TIE / LN starfighter s , to Giel ' s confusion and anger . The admiral was not fooled for long , however , and he realized that the Alliance must have procured their own TIE fighters , and entered the armada ' s ranks . To hamstring the Rebel ' s efforts , Giel ordered his men to have the teezl transmit interference on all frequencies , save for the Imperial war band . That would force the Rebel pilots to begin using Imperial frequencies , which Giel ' s men could then listen in to , and use to their advantage . The plan was enacted , and initially , the Rebel pilots simply did not communicate . Two of the TIE fighters approached the teezl ' s transport cage , neither of them transmitting . The admiral , concerned that they would damage the teezl , ordered that they both be shot down , as a precaution . Before Giel ' s gunners could do so , one of the TIE fighters was shot down by the other . Immediately afterward , the surviving ship expended all of its firepower with an ultra - power blast that struck the flagship . The teezl was killed , and its transport cage demolished , as well as a considerable portion of the ship itself . Colonel Malka excitedly pointed out the fighter as it flew away , and Giel , trying to contain his anger , ordered his pilots to chase down and destroy the ship . They failed , however , and the modified TIE , piloted by Luke Skywalker , was able to make the jump to hyperspace . Traveling to the Star Dreadnought " Executor " , Giel met with Supreme Commander Lord Darth Vader , who was waiting in his meditation chamber . The Dark Lord was less than pleased with the loss of the teezl , but the admiral argued that the Rebel pilots had stolen TIE craft , and that no contingency plan could have foreseen or prevented that kind of subterfuge . Vader cared little , as the teezl ' s installation at Imperial Center could have boosted the Empire ' s communication capacity a thousandfold . Although Giel refused to be blamed for the loss of the teezl , since protecting it had been his mandate , he assumed full responsibility for the incident , and any subsequent punishment . Vader was impressed with Giel ' s frankness , and he spared the admiral ' s life . Instead , he chose to demote the man to lieutenant . Disappointed , Giel departed the Dark Lord ' s chambers . Failure on Golrath . Vader tasked Lieutenant Giel with searching a former Alliance base on Golrath , which had been reported by a secret Imperial agent some time beforehand . Traveling there with now - Sergeant Malka and a detachment of troops , Giel was determined to find anything valuable that the Rebels had left behind in the way of plans or data , as he hoped to regain his lost admiralty . When one of the troopers reported that nothing had been found , Giel was not satisfied , and had them sweep the facility again . Hearing gunshots suddenly ring out , Giel dashed to the location of the commotion to investigate . Two troopers , believing they were under attack from a Rebel force , had blasted a cavern ' s crystal walls . Examining the fragments of the walls , Giel discovered that the crystal had somehow recorded footage of the Rebels while they were at the base , and was spontaneously playing it back . Realizing the significance of the discovery , Giel hurriedly had Malka contact Vader , while ordering TIE fighters to the skies . The lieutenant believed that if the Alliance knew that Golrath Station ' s walls had been somehow " recording " their actions , they would try and destroy the base . Sure enough , Rebel starfighters entered the system and engaged Giel ' s TIEs . One of them , breaking formation , dropped off prominent Rebel Leia Organa , who , using a parabelt , was able to breach Golrath Station ' s perimeter . Noticing Organa ' s presence on a holocam , Giel ordered that two guards be placed in the reactor room , which was Organa ' s likely target . The rest of the personnel were to be transferred back to the command ship , while Giel remained behind with the two guards , to deal with Organa personally . While Giel waited in the reactor room , Organa swiftly dispatched the two guards . As she ran towards the switch for the overload damper , Giel fired at her , forcing her to take cover . The pair exchanged verbal barbs , and Giel revealed that he didn ' t intend to stop Organa from destroying Golrath Station — in fact , he wanted to help her , as he believed that the death of her would be far more demoralizing to the Rebellion and advantageous to the Empire than his continued existence . Giel was also content with the idea of dying as a hero to his cause . He pulled the overload damper switch , and closed the room ' s blast doors . Organa appeared to surrender herself , but as she moved out from behind her cover , she activated her parabelt , which was attached to her leg by a string . The parabelt in turn was affixed to a dolly , which rocketed towards Giel , bowling him over . Organa opened the blast doors and escaped , leaving Giel defeated once more . As he made his way out of the station , he spotted a T - 65 X - wing starfighter flying away . At first convincing himself that the shot was impossible , and that acts of spite were pointless , he could not resist firing on the craft . He scored a glancing blow , though nothing severe , but he did feel better for having done so . Boarding his Imperial troop transport , he was informed by his pilot that Vader had sent his congratulations in the wake of discovering the properties of the crystal walls . Resignedly , Giel had his pilot set a course for the " Executor " , so Giel could report his failure in person . After they had departed , the reactors exploded , and Golrath Station was destroyed . As the transport fled the blast , however , it suffered severe damage , with its hyperdrive rendered useless . The ship was forced to crash on the nearby world of Beheboth — although the ship itself and most of those aboard were destroyed , Giel and Malka survived by ejecting their escape pod in time . Experiments on Beheboth . Giel realized that if he were to return to Vader , he would surely die . Several weeks after landing on Beheboth , he and Malka were able to capture a whole nest of the native Tirrith — a gas - based life form that could affect the planet ' s atmosphere at an atomic level . Since 3 ABY , they had been supplying the inhabitants of Beheboth with constant rain , but when Giel and Malka apprehended the hive , the rest of the Tirrith brought a halt to the rain , plunging the planet into drought . Giel made contact with his wealthy cousins — nobles on Ralltiir — who , in turn , gave him the name of Kimp Minmirn , a Quarren scientist specializing in genetic modification . His great - uncle provided Giel and Malka with credits , allowing the pair to keep a low profile while they stayed in the town of Prosperity , below the notice of Darth Vader . The lieutenant used the money to purchase a moisture farm in the wastelands outside Prosperity , and he then made sure that the location was well secured . The public conception of the pair was that they were overly paranoid , peculiar , but not inherently strange . They did most of their trade with far away towns on the other side of the planet ' s wastelands , but the fact that they constantly purchased vaporator parts assuaged any suspicion . The purchases were merely a ruse — none of them were employed at the farm , since the farm was actually a disguise for the laboratory the pair of them ran . When Minmirn arrived , Giel made sure that Malka knew nothing of the Quarren ' s origins , or how he had been contacted . The Quarren was put to work breeding and condensing the captive Tirrith , and he eventually succeeded in making them capable of killing with mere exposure . Meanwhile , Giel killed farmer Berl Matoone with the mutant Tirrith , and from him extracted information on how Gideon Longspar had been able to control them during the Beheboth civil war . Matoone ' s corpse was placed on the property of the local peacekeeper , Darial Anglethorn . Giel then designed restraining cages for the mutant Tirrith , miniature versions of Longspar ' s design . Giel believed that , if they could be perfected , the mutant Tirrith would secure him his admiralty , and would allow him to crush the Alliance definitively . The mutant Tirrith were then placed in the restraint cages , which worked perfectly . In 8 ABY , four years after the Empire ' s disastrous defeat at the Battle of Endor , Giel decided to bring his experiments to an end . He killed Minmirn , since the Quarren ' s usefulness had expired , and intended to use his late colleague ' s ship to take his new bioweapons to the Empire . Before he and Malka could do so , though , they planned to use the Tirrith to eradicate a New Republic outpost on the outskirts of Prosperity , as a demonstration . To prepare for the attack , they procured a map of the outpost . The full destructive power of the mutant Tirrith was tested against the local New Republic installation , Outpost B - 2 . The base was only supplied with infrequent troop transport visits , and so it had no vehicles that Giel and Malka would be able to use to leave the planet and return to the Empire ; thus , they decided to take Minmirn ' s ship . Making their way into Prosperity in Matoone ' s cargo hauler , which was carrying the mutant Tirrith in their cages , the pair were cut off by Anglethorn , who was on a bike . As the peacemaker approached the hauler ' s cabin , Giel and Malka quickly exited the vehicle , and went around to its cargo hold to retrieve the cages . By the time they had completely unloaded them , Anglethorn had reached the hold , blaster drawn . Thinking quickly , Giel shoved Malka towards the peacemaker , who instinctively fired , hitting Giel ' s longtime aide . In reaction to the shot , all of Prosperity ' s denizens left the streets and fled indoors . Giel moved away from the hauler with most of the cages , save one , which he left next to the hauler . He then activated the kill switch for the cages , causing the Tirrith to explode , as well as rendering Anglethorn unconscious , and critically wounded . Malka was also definitively killed . Reaching Prosperity ' s spaceport , Giel took Minmirn ' s ship , and fled the planet , although he did not realize that , since the ship had been overdue on docking fees , it had been fitted with an impoundment transmitter , allowing others to track him . Personality and traits . A loud man , Mils Giel was quick to assert his dominance over those he outranked . To drive home his point , he wore his medals and awards on his uniform . Although he disliked disciplining his crew , he would not hesitate to do so . When he saw a deck officer wearing a non - regulation cap , he ordered the offender to complete ten laps around the ship . Although Giel realized that the officer would likely stop when he was out of sight , he was satisfied with the knowledge that the offender would likely wear regulation uniform from then on . Giel also requested that his crew not use nicknames for things such as the teezl , but rather , use the official designations . In addition to his other skills , Giel could speak four languages — Galactic Basic Standard , Huttese , Quarren , and Sullustan . A frank man , Giel was not , unlike many of his colleagues , afraid of Darth Vader , and felt free to speak honestly with the Dark Lord . In return , Vader regarded Giel as a man of " courage and integrity , " but nevertheless chose to punish him for the loss of the teezl . This did not deter Giel , and he was determined , once demoted to lieutenant , to regain his former rank of admiral . During this time , he pressed his troops for results , and earned the nickname of " Ol ' leadhead . " Giel was fanatically dedicated to Palpatine ' s New Order , so much so that he was willing to sacrifice himself as a martyr for the Empire . On Golrath , Giel prepared himself for death , hoping that he would be able to claim Rebel leader Leia Organa ' s life in the process . When the gambit failed , Giel tried to contain his anger , as he had done on several occasions , but could not resist the temptation of firing a futile shot at a passing Alliance ship . Giel also had a cruel streak , as demonstrated when he turned the Tirrith of Beheboth into mutants , making them lethal . He also seemed not to value his aide , Malka , and was all too willing to sacrifice him during the brouhaha at Prosperity . Behind the scenes . Mils Giel made his first appearance , briefly , in 1982 ' s " " , which was written by David Michelinie and Walter Simonson . He was later the principal antagonist in " " , and would also appear in " " , and " " , all in the same year . In 2004 , Cory J . Herndon picked up on Giel ' s story from where it had left off with " Golrath Never Forgets " , detailing his exploits on Beheboth in " " .