pg.218: A pair of fighters streraked by, spitting fire. The Falcon's shields glowed and pulsed, absorbing the energy, feeding it into the reactors. There were limits to the amount that could be absorbed that way—in which case the reactor would come apart, taking the ship and everything within a thousand kilometers with it—but for now, each unsuccessful pass fed the Millenium Falcon's engines and her guns.
pg.233: Then he unlatched a metal cover over a graduated knob. Normally it was at a tiny minus value, placing the main strength of the shields just under the first few molecules of the ships skin. There were sound reasons for this, but Lando didn't care about them right now. He turned the knob, slowly, very carefully. The ships structure groaned as the shields expanded, first a millimeter, then a centimeter from the surface of the hull. Stresses were transmitted through the hull members to the heavily butressed casing of the field generator. Lando turned the knob a little more. The Falcon had been tightly wedged within the rock, the wheel of her upper airlock hatch scraping one side of the crevice, the bottom of her hull abraded by the other. There hadn't been a millimeter to spare. Now Lando was demanding more room, expanding the shields against the asteroids surface.	The main strength of ship shields are set to be below the first few molecules of their hull. This means that there is still some above that area (hence the glow). Also the shields that expanded acted against physical objects (the asteroid) and energy weapons (the fighters beam weapon)
pg.233: A brilliant beam of energy cascaded across the front shields. By accident or design the enemy had found its prey. The power needle jumped.