Yazmin grew up on Tattooine, the daughter of a Salvage Merchant called Aklon. As a child, Yazmin earned barely enough credits to supplement her father's pathetic wages to feed them. She did menial tasks that required little strength, like sweeping floors and cleaning windows after a sandstorm. Having sustained a crippling injury during his time as an Imperial Starfighter pilot, her father had little to offer many people, aside from his in-depth knowledge of ships and their parts. Naturally, Aklon passed his wealth of knowledge to his daughter, whose young mind soaked up the information like a sponge. They would spend hours in the salvage yard, using spare parts to build a makeshift sand-speeder.

By the time she was a teenager, she began taking repair work for speeders and some ships. When she was fifteen, she started racing people with her speeder, and one several times, earning enough currency to support her and her father for a long time. However, her winning led to angering some poor-sports, one of which was involved with the Hutt clan. During their race, Yazmin had led the man through a canyon, and destroyed his speeder. When the man turned out to be a high-ranking member of Jabba's "orginization," she found herself robbed of all her credits and her speeder destroyed. Her lack of money and a speeder sent her back to doing odd repair jobs, and her father had to find another employer.

When Yazmin was 17, Aklon was working as a repairman at the spaceport in Mos Eisley. An imperial convoy had to stop for repairs, after battling and apprehending a rebel spy. Unbenknownst to Yazmin, Aklon had been in contact with the rebel cell in Mos Eisly, who had paid him to sabatoge the ship instead of repairing it, giving them time to rescue their spy. When Aklon was discovered by an imperial officer as the saboteur, he was immediately executed and Yazmin was thrown in prison for a year.

After being released from the Mos Eisley Prison, Yazmin was contacted by the rebels who had worked with her father. They paid her to help smuggle weapons cargo off the planet. When the exit went wrong, the ship was nearly shot down, but they managed to jump into light speed before they were apprehended. Having no place to go, a fresh criminal record, and a burning desire to avenge her father, she accepted an invitation to the Rancor Company. After her initiation, she was passed into the Black Squadron, her and her x-wing becoming known as Black Five.