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Upon entering from the rear of the bridge, you see the tactical station on your direct right. It is almost a booth with enough space for two people. On your left is the ops station which looks similiar to the tactical station. As you approach the railing in front of you, you see the captain's chair and the first officer's chair, with the helm several feet in front of them. On both walls, there are numerous stations monitoring everything happening on the ship. From the helm you can see the engineering and mission ops stations along the far back wall of the bridge, and now the engineering and science stations on either side of you once again along the walls. Attached to the bridge, you will find both the captain's ready room and the senior officer's briefing lounge. The captain's ready room is attached directly 
to the bridge in order for the captain to be nearby in a crisis situation. The room is spacious for only one person with a replicator, desk and sofa area. Many captains prefer this room over their quarters because they are just as comfortable and are also near the bridge. Captains also do much of their normal, everyday work from here as well. Meanwhile, on the other side of the bridge, there is the entrance to the
crew briefing area. It is used at the start of each new mission for the captain to brief the senior officers on what they will be doing. This way is more productive so that instead of the captain breifing the entire
ship, he or she can brief the department heads who can in turn brief the members of their department.
Deck two consists mainly of the mess hall. A series of security stations are
set up to act as defense in case of an intruder alert for the bridge, but other than that, all that is left of deck two is a series of nonessential systems and a few crew quarters. The messhall acts as one of the main social centers on the ship. Although people primarily come here to eat, sometimes crew events are held here.
As the turbolift takes you down again to a lower deck, you find that decks three and four seem identical. That is because they consist mainly of the crew quarters. There is a fair mix of rank and branch of duty. As you go down another deck to deck 5, you find that this deck too has many crew quarters, but
also contains the ship's sickbay. Here crew report for required physicals and nursing of injuries. As with all starfleet vessels, we are equipped with an EMH. The EMH could remain active all the time to assist the various doctors and nurses if that were decided. The EMH has extensive experience and knowledge from many doctors throughout the Federation, both living and deceased.
On deck 6 the buzz of activity harbors around both holodecks 1 and 2, favourites for all crewmembers. Holodeck time is often faught for amoung the crew. The computer can generate literally billions of different computer programs ranging from a walk on the beach to a Klingon bat'leth competition. 
Also on deck 6 is the ship's astrometrics lab, used to calculate and plot courses, as well as analyze scientific data gathered by the ship's sensors. In many cases, astrometrics can be used to control other systems on the ship such as tactical due to the improved sensor capability.
As before, decks seven through ten are mainly crew quarters. On deck 11, you see crew scurrying about. As you proceed farther you begin to hear that the ships warp engines seem to be becoming louder until finally you come upon on the ship's main engineering. In it's center sits the warp 
core, which is bustling with energy. Contained behind forcefields and other energy barriers, powerful reactions are taking place between matter and antimatter to fuel the warp drive. You are inclined to look downward along the railing and see that the core extends downward into another deck, deck 12. This section is also just as busy, where engineers and technicians busily go about their duties.
Beyond deck 12, you find that the remaining three decks consist primarily of the ship's marine unit. From deck 13, all shuttles are kept in the shuttlebay except for launch during missions when it is deemed necessary. On deck 14, you find the Marine quarters. The Cortez has a compliment of exactly 30 marines who live on deck 14. Besides their quarters, this deck also holds a compliment of anti-matter storage pods and escape pods. On deck 15, the last deck, you find an immense row of hangars holding the ship's 20 marine attack fighters. The Cortez carries two classes of fighters, ten of each kind. The first is the small and highly manueverable minnow class. These fighters are perfect for long and short range missions, and are highly
armed. The second type is the hummer class, which is actually a smaller version of the outdated Peregrine class fighter. In battle, all 20 of these 1-man fighters of both classes can be deployed within mere moments. The direct route to the warp engine plasma stream also extends from deck 15.
Also onboard the ship is the new age in runabout design. The USS Ascendant, an experimental class of runabout based on the Delta Flyer schematics sent from the Delta Quadrant, is the ship's own personal smaller battle cruiser. Equiped to carry nearly 40 people, although cramped, at a time, the Ascendant can double as a troop transport. Housed in the shuttlebay, this is now a vital part of the Cortez's daily operations.