Particle beam

A particle beam was a form of energy projectile starships were armed with. In 200 BBY, as the Silver Knights' elite red apricot squad conducted a raid on Lake 4399, Lu Nan used her personal blaster, a highly modified and convertable DF-q91 sniper rifle, to fire a particle beam at an enemy Security Bureau landspeeder, piercing through its armored plating and striking the fuel tank, transforming the speeder and its occupants into a burst of fire. Such skill demonstrated by Lu prompted the defenders of the military base at Lake 4399 to activate their heavy cannon tower, which had enough firepower to pose a threat to a medium sized battle cruiser spacecraft. The cannon mercilessly fired upon Lu's location, incinerating the mountainside with high energy particle beams, melting the rock and creating magma.

Later, when the Silver Dawn was ambushed by the Vermilion Birds pirates at the Lake asteroid field, several high energy level particle beams pierced through the Silver Dawn deflector shields and hull and struck the portside's coolant chamber, destroying its temperature regulator and storage cans of coolant liquids. The flammable coolant were thus ignited under high temperatures, setting the entire chamber and surrounding areas on fire. With the Silver Dawn in jeopardy mid-battle, the mechanic Sean was sent to refill the ship's portside coolant tanks. Sean eventually succeeded, and the Silver Dawn repelled its attackers, capturing three pirates for interrogation in the process.

Text and facts from the “Particle beam” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.