William Hurst has been in the Rebellion since the age of 23, and has risen ever so slightly up the chain of command to be in charge of his own unit. Now it has been over two years since his first command, and he has yet to see it again.

During his first mission as commander of the squad, they were just suppose to destroy a small garrison on a little known planet. All went well on the planet, but on the way to the rendezvous point they came across a standard Imperial patrol. The transponder code and papers the group gave the Imperials worked, and the frieghter continued on its way. Then as the ship was almost ready for hyperspace, one of the commanding officers recognized the ship as being on numerous planets where sabotage had happened and called the TIE Fighters to attack the ship. The Special Forces unit fought with honor and downed three of the TIE's before Will had to issue the order to abandon the ship. Since he was in the rear laser turret, he was the only one to run to the rear escape pods, while the rest of his group used the forward ones. He sat in the pod hoping that the distress signal they had sent out would reach someone before more disaster struck; he was not to be so lucky. He watched as one flight of TIE's movied in towards the first forward escape pod. Then the fighters unleashed a barrage of energy that turned the pod instantly into a ball of fall and then just a memory. Then as they started the next run and approached optimum range for their weapons, they peeled off. Just then two things happened: a tractor beam seized the second forward pod, and a small Rebel task force came out of hyperspace. Out-gunned now, the patrol took their prize and ran, leaving Will the only surviving non-prisoner of the conflict.

The Rebellion found no fault in how Will had handled the situation, but he could not get the faces of his friends out of his mind. For the last two years, Will has been on an indefinite leave of absence until his mind is back to normal. In that time he has kept his abilities up by signing on with smugglers and pirates of all kinds, just hopping from one planet to the next and one ship to the next, not getting too close to anybody, so as not to lose another friend. He does keep in touch with the Rebellion by letting them know where he is going next and finding out who to get in contact with there. Will knows that this time off will mean the end to a promising career, but when he returns he has no intention of ever having a command again, so this weighs very little on him. Both his superiors and he know that he will return, and probably soon, to active duty with the Rebels, and the only reason that this will be allowed to happen is because of the money they spent on training him and his experience in the field.