Yendi Kostannis had been waiting all day. Nearly twelve hours, and nothing to show for her efforts. No one at the Solek District detention center would answer her questions. She'd been instructed to fill out an information request, but she knew full well what the Empire did with the proper channels. They'd thank her for her query, and it would all but be thrown in the garbage.

So she sat in the lobby, useless and aimless. She'd talked to anyone who would spare a minute to listen. She was looking for a man named Jamo Jakatta, who she'd heard on the scanners had been picked up by Imperial Security. He'd grown up in the neighborhood with her. They'd gone to school together. They'd...been something together, once. Years ago. He'd left Corellia, and she knew it would be for good the way he went. He left everything behind, including her.

Now, he was back from who-knows-where, and almost as soon as she'd found out from friends on the block, she'd heard the detention APB go out. Coronet City was already full of Imperial beat patrols, so it was hard to see the force escalation on top of what was already a crush of stormtroopers on every street corner.

What happened to him? What was going to happen?

Yendi slumped forward on the bench she'd occupied for half a day, wiping away the streak of tears on her face. New footsteps around the corner caught her attention, and a stormtrooper entered the lobby.

"TX-4491?" she asked. He'd been the last one through, and while he hadn't done anything to help, he'd at least listened to her go through it all again.

"I'm his relief, ma'am. TK-9942."

Yendi sat up with a sniff. Every stormtrooper in the galaxy looked alike, and the Empire erased their names with an alphanumeric string. It was all on purpose - to remove the humanity from the man. To prevent someone like Yendi from doing what she was desperately trying to do.

"Can you help me? Please?"

She clutched at the bundle of flimsis in her lap, hopeful that he'd give them the time of day.

"I'm looking for a friend of mine, I heard he got picked up."

The stormtrooper peered back at her like a statue, his vox clicking on harshly to let the antiseptic timbre of his voice through.

"You'll want to file form CDT-42. The attendant can h-"

"I've filed it already. I filed three. I'm..."

"You'll have to wait for the proper channel to respond, ma'am. Visitations for family or legal counsel are -"

"I'm neither of those, I'm just..." Yendi buried her head in her hands, letting them slide up through her hair as she endured the frustration. "...we're close, you know? Don't you?"

She looked up again at TK-9942. Somewhere in there, there had to be a real person.

If there was, that person was being completely silent. Yendi tried to keep a composed face, but the grief and the terror were eroding her control. Hot moisture welled beneath her eyes as she bit on her lower lip.

"I don't need to see him...I'd like to if I can but...I just want to know if he's here or there or if he's been taken off world..."

The Corellian girl's eyes tightened closed as she thumbed away a resurgent tear. Her shoulders shook as the signs of crying she tried so valiantly to keep from becoming sound.

"Please...I just want peace of mind. What would you do if you were me? If it were someone you loved?"

Exhausted, Yendi began to hang her head once again. Now her crying became sound - sharp gasps punctuated between her heaving shoulders as her brunette hair spilled over the contents of her lap.

The next sound she heard was the hollow sound of plastoid armor moving. She looked up to see TK-9942 moving to sit on the bench next to her. She looked into his dark oculars, her eyes red and puffed. She held onto a hope.

"Is that him?" the vox-filtered voice sounded almost interested as the stormtrooper gestured to one of the flimsies she carried. Yendi took a few sniffs, afraid to say anything that might frighten away this rare moment of empathy.

She nodded.

TK-9942 carefully reached over with a black-gloved hand, picking the flimsi from her lap. He took a few moments to inspect it, then looked up and around, settling briefly on the clerk's window at the front of the lobby before turning back to the distraught woman.

"I'll see what I can do."