Yelkin was a male Devaronian who worked as a thorilide miner and pilot on the moon of Cynda during the early years of the Galactic Empire's rule. Employed by Moonglow Polychemical, he served as part of the human Okadiah Garson's work team, drilling holes for explosives. The Jedi Purge survivor Kanan Jarrus saved Yelkin during a cave-in on Cynda, but the miner later died in an explosion on the moon.
Yelkin was a Devaronian miner and pilot who lived in the Gorse system during the Age of the Empire. In 11 BBY, Yelkin was piloting a personnel transport carrying miners to the mining moon of Cynda. However, he entered the landing bay too quickly and his freighter clipped the side of the doorway. The disabled mining vessel was left stranded partly outside the landing bay. Shortly later, a Moonglow Polychemical–owned freighter hauler called Expedient flew through the entrance to the landing bay, narrowly scraping Yelkin's transport. Yelkin and the other miners were shaken and outraged by freighter pilot Kanan Jarrus' reckless action.
Angered by Kanan's recklessness, Yelkin confronted the young human pilot after he had landed. When Kanan ignored him, Yelkin grabbed Kanan's shoulder. Using his Force-enhanced reflexes, the Great Jedi Purge survivor spun around and twisted Yelkin's arm. When Kanan told him that ship was in the way, Yelkin responded that everyone had deadlines, especially after the Galactic Empire had shot down the laggard freighter Cynda Dreaming. Kanan then told him to go faster but not to be stupid. Several miners then sprung to Yelkin's defense, criticizing Kanan's reckless piloting.
Kanan's friend Okadiah Garson, who operated a cantina called The Asteroid Field on the planet Gorse, managed to end the tensions by inviting the miners, including Yelkin, for drinks at his cantina after their work shift. While Yelkin was initially angry with Okadiah for taking in "some real pieces of work", he was mollified by Okadiah's offer and went to work without any further incident with Kanan. Yelkin and his fellow miners went to Zone Forty-Two, where they began preparations for a blasting operation. They were eventually joined by Kanan, delivering a hovercart of baradium bisulfate. At that point, one of the miners discovered that the dissident miner Skelly had planted explosives at the site in what was, in his own mind, an attempt to demonstrate to the Empire and the various mining companies the dangers of continuing to mine Cynda.
Unable to stop Skelly's bomb, Yelkin and Kanan were forced to flee. While fleeing the explosion, Yelkin twisted his ankle, before warning Kanan that he needed to grab his load of explosives so it didn't make the situation worse. Despite their initial animosity, Kanan managed to rescue the Devaronian by hoisting him onto his hovercart, before riding it out of the blast zone. After fleeing through a tunnel, Kanan pushed Yelkin ahead, covertly using the Force in the darkness to avoid being crushed himself. After escaping Zone Forty-Two, Kanan left the wounded Yelkin with Okadiah and the rest of the mining team. Skelly's illegal explosion coincided with a visit by the Imperial efficiency expert Count Denetrius Vidian, who had come to increase production in the Gorse system.
Two days later, Yelkin and Okadiah were among the miners killed when Count Vidian conducted a test bombing in Cynda's Zone Sixty-Six. Vidian had decided to detonate Cynda under the pretext of increasing thorilide mining productivity in the Gorse system. To allay his Imperial superiors' fears that detonating Cynda would damage the thorilide crystals, Vidian staged a test bombing and falsified the results to support his plan. Yelkin's body was crushed by the explosion and embedded in the new strata of the moon. His remains were discovered by Kanan and his new rebel friend Hera Syndulla, who had come to the moon to rescue Okadiah after learning of the test bombing.
As a Devaronian, Yelkin had horns on his head. Yelkin was also known to have a fierce temper and accosted Kanan Jarrus, after the latter performed a dangerous stunt of driving his freighter past Yelkin's damaged freighter. While Yelkin could pilot a starship, he was not a very careful pilot and crashed his freighter into the doorway, causing a traffic jam. While Yelkin was muscular, he was unable to match the Force-enhanced reflexes of Kanan, a secret Jedi Purge survivor. As a miner, Yelkin was knowledgeable about handling explosives and knew how to measure the length of a borehole. Despite their acrimonious encounter, Kanan respected Yelkin's life enough to safe him from being killed by an explosion.
Yelkin first appeared as a minor supporting character in John Jackson Miller's 2014 novel A New Dawn, the first in a new line of Canon novels produced in conjunction with the Lucasfilm Story Group. Most of his lines are told through the point-of-view of Kanan Jarrus, one of the novel's main protagonists who would later feature in the Disney XD television series Star Wars Rebels.