Welcome, here are two stories based on Cortex Command. The first one is by me, Aracanid and is about a drop ship trooper that gets split up from his squadron, however little does he know he is about to become one hell of a lot more important! The second story ties in with the first story and is by Orindell. It is about a group of pathfinders sent out by their CO to find a missing agent who has vital information regarding the war between Humans and AI. Watch them closely as they will be updated quite frequently, chapter by chapter. Hope you enjoy and give comments as you see fit.
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[Deciding on name]-----[by Aracanid]
Chapter One: First Impressions


As I walked out of the barracks I saw the ground crews working hastily, making sure everything was ok, the sky was clear and the sun was shining down. I saw all the drop ships, sitting there, the sun gleaming of their shinny metallic hulls, just waiting there to be filled with men. This would be my first real drop, and I was excited about it. As we were equipped with weapons and ammo we listened to sarge shouting out what to do if the ship is shot and cannot land. "Grasp your jetpack and get ready to jump, the person closest to the hatch is to open it. In the event that the hatch is broken then you shoot the locks; got it?" After we got our equipment, we clambered onto the drop ship, one by one. We took our places and watched as the sarge walked up and told the pilot that were ready to go. As if instantly we lifted up and the hatch began to close. That last bit of bright, beautiful sunlight would be the last bit of sunlight I'd see for the next 3 hours.
We sat there perfectly silent, no-one opened their mouths. Even sarge was quiet. The odd click or thud from someone checking their guns or taking out their mag. I was amazed at the weapon the sarge had! It was beautifully crafted, unlike our guns. It had a large mag and a scope on it, yet, it wasn't a sniper. It was fully automatic, able to fire 50 rounds before reloading and with great accuracy as well. I was disturbed from my enchanting trance as the pilot shouted, "Alright ETA 3 minutes, get ready. 'Gonna be a rough ride, we've lost 4 drop ships already." These words made me nervous, what if one of the plasma rounds hit the ship? What if the engine failed? What if...?
Just as I thought this a massive thud smacked against the ship, a great flash and smoke. My ears were ringing and everything was fading away, had I been shot? Even though I couldn't see anything I could still hear through the headset. Brief comments from the pilot made me fear for not only my life, but the life of the rest of the squad. "Thruster 1 out, can’t stabilize! You guys are gonna have to jump, I can’t keep 'er up much longer guys!" After that someone picked me up, asked me was I ok. Everything came back into focus, “I’m ok, what happened?" I asked. As everything became clearer I noticed it was sarge, but there was no-one else on the drop ship except me and him. "Where is everyone? What happened?"
"Calm down kid, its ok. The rest have jumped, you remember what I told you don't you?"
"Yea..."
"Good, lets go, the pilot can’t keep us up!"
Before I knew it I'd been tossed out of the drop ship, with sarge following shortly after. As I ignited my boosters, I watched the drop ship begin to spiral downwards. I was waiting, and hoping, that the pilots would eject. Suddenly I heard a small bang as I saw an ejector seat fly out of the ship, hurtling upwards into the sky. As I looked up I noticed the other drop ships and huge explosions of plasma now and then smashing into them, sometimes hitting the fuel tanks and causing the entire ship to explode.
I looked at the pilot once again as he ignited his jetpack, glad that he was ok. I thought to myself that the other must have died in the initial blast. Suddenly there was a massive explosion as the ship smashed onto the planets surface; huge flaming pieces of debris flew into the air.
I touched down on the ground about 2 minutes later, I radioed my squad. Asking where they were. I sat down beside a tree, realizing that I had a gash down the side of my leg. I ripped a piece of my uniform of and tied it around the wound, it hurt, but I didn't scream. I radioed again "Come in, this is clone 3756, I'm unsure of where I am. Is anyone there?" Even with the second radio no-one replied. It must have been damaged when the plasma hit the ship. As I was about to get up, I heard cranking and thuds, I looked over the bush I was behind and saw two robots, I'd never seen anything like them before, of course in the training simulations, but not up close and personal. They had lots of armor and some kind of futuristic weapons, like lasers or plasma guns. They had big glowing eyes and lots of scratch marks and scores from where bullets had bounced off there heavy armor.
Without thinking, I picked up my SMG and began to open fire, one just burst into a cloud of sparks as his head flung off and his body fell to the ground. The other however my bullets bounced off its body plates as it turned round and opened fire. Lumps of heated plasma just hurtled towards me as a jumped behind a tree, however I realized that what I had just done was stupid as a chunk of plasma shot through the tree, just missing my head. I jumped from behind the tree, shooting randomly as I fell. When I hit the ground I heard crackling as sparks jumped from its body, it jumped randomly, still clutching its weapon. I fired one more round right into its forehead and watched it just... stop. Out of curiosity I picked up its weapon, It had some strange markings on it, and a few dials. As I looked at it more closely I noticed something written in my language, 'Scout Class,’ I was shocked. They armored there scouts like that. What must the others be like...?

Chapter Two: Reunited?

I wandered around for a while, encountering more scouts but avoiding contact with them. I lost track of time after a while and decided to sit down beside a tree. I just sat there, wondering, why wasn't there any more drop ships coming? Where were the rest of the guys that had jumped? I stared at the sky for hours watching as it briefly lit up from explosions and listening to the sounds of war in the distance. I must have fallen asleep for a while because when I opened my eyes, it was bright. The explosions and gunshots had gotten closer, so I decided to check it out and look around, hopefully to find my squad. If they weren't already dead that is. I wandered the forest for about one hour, admiring how beautiful it was. Bar the few areas where drop ships had crashed or battles had been fought.
After a while of walking the forest just stopped, when all of a sudden a great city was lying in ruins in front of me. The gunshots where louder than ever, explosions everywhere as drop ships flew low and dropped bombs on targets in the distance. I began to walk along the road, looking around, seeing charred bodies and broken weapons here and there. Suddenly the guns stopped, for a brief second all was quiet and you could hear the birds in the forest, just in a flash a walker burst through the walls of a building with men firing close behind it. Plasma flew through the air, burning holes through the men, and melting chunks of the huge walker. I noticed on the side of the walker, the star. It was one of ours, I ran over to the men, randomly firing my weapon in the same direction as them. As I got closer one of the men turned to me, about to open fire, before just realizing that I was on his side.
"Who 'r you?"
"Clone 3756, 138th drop ship regiment"
"Good, just start firing but stay behind the walker, got it solider?"
"Sir, yes Sir"
I opened fire, shooting everything that moved in that direction. It looked as if we were winning; most of the robots were gone, only a few remained. I saw something in the sky, something big. It was a drop ship but not one of ours, at the same time, as if simultaneously a tank drove out from behind one of the ruined buildings, however it didn't look like ours. It fired at the walker’s leg, blowing it to pieces; the walker tumbled to one side, creating loud thud, and a cloud of dust. The wreckage had created a shield however and I tried to look over it as often as possible to get a glimpse of what was being unloaded from the drop ship. The few brief moments that I looked over the collapsed walker, I watched the ship unload robots, but not normal ones. Huge ones, with big guns. They had heavy armor, Very thick plated.
"RETREAT! RETREAT!"
I looked behind us, into the building they had come out of. More troops were inside; they climbed down a hole in the ground. I followed closely, making sure not to get lost it the strange networks of tunnels. How long had these men been here? Their faces were almost black with dirt, there armor scorched and scar pretty much everywhere. Some had armor that didn't fit, many looked as if they hadn't eaten for weeks and pretty much all of them had scars and bruises.

Chapter Three: The armory


We had been running down these tunnels for ages now, all you could hear was the march of feet and the odd rumble from an explosion on the top. Every so often I would walk past a body with rotting flesh or missing limbs, hadn't anyone thought of lifting them and burying them? Is this the sort of death I awaited? Lying underground to rot or be blown apart by a bomb? We stopped running after a while, and began to walk. I saw a light at the end the tunnel we were in, not a normal light, but rather a red one. We walked towards it and up to a door, a metal door with bullet marks and scratches along it. Blood was everywhere here, on the door, on the tunnel walls and even on roof. What had happened here? What seemed to be the leader of this group of men walked forward towards the door, and swiped a key card down a slot. A beep, green light, a click and the door swung open. A bright light shone from behind the heavy door, blinding me slightly. Two men were behind the door with guns pointed towards us, they looked at the man who opened the door and lowered their weapons saying "Go on in, Sir! He walked in, briefly saluting the two guards, the rest followed him as did I. When I walked through the door I saw many more men dressed the same way as the ones I had been following, most even had the same weapons, bar the few with bazookas or heavy MG's. Some had plasma guns, big and small. I forgot about my own plasma gun, so I checked if it was still there, thankfully, it was. I took it of my side and looked at it again; I was amazed at how well it was built. As I admired the gun, the leader came over to me.
"Hello I am Lieutenant Warren of the UPB! Who are you?"
"I’m Clone 3756 of the 138th Drop ship regiment, what’s the UPB?"
"Good an experienced fighter, we need some more of yo-"
"You DON'T understa-"
"Don’t interrupt me solider! It’s not a good idea. As I was saying... nice to have you aboard, and for further reference the UPB is the Underground partisan Brotherhood. Got it?"
"Yes Sir."
They didn't realize that I wasn't experienced! This was my first real drop! None the less he led me towards what he called 'The armory',
"Here we are solider" he shouted.
I stared in front of me, it was a wall. A plain concrete wall, was he crazy?
"Not over there, you idiot! Down here!"
I looked down, to my surprise we were standing on a gigantic trap door. He tapped it 3 times, the 3rd time it began to slide open. I jumped backwards of the trapdoor to avoid falling.
"Ok solider, let’s go..."
"Yes Sir, but where are we going?"
"You’ll see... you'll see..."
I followed him down the ladder, as I reached the bottom I looked around, the room was very dark and I couldn't see much. I couldn't even see the Lt. I clambered of the ladder and all of a sudden a bright light from every direction, I couldn't see! My eyes began to adjust to the light intensity and I could see. It was like nothing I'd seen before, Huge walls of Bullets and cartridges. Guns lined around every wall and every nuck and cranny had something explosive or dangerous. It was as if standing beside a bomb waiting for it to go off... but it won’t.

Chapter 4: The ground trembles above
I stood there in amazement for a minute, trying to get over the vast resources these men had. They had so much ammo and weapons, yet they looked so un-prepared for battle, even if they did wear full armor all the time. They never seemed to have it of, everyone wearing the same identical uniform, the only difference being the ranks sowed onto there arms. Some captains wore different helmets or carried personalized weapons, others didn't. A voice broke daze of thought;
"Go on then..."
"Excuse me sir?"
"Go on, take what you please, it’s our gift to you."
"ehrm... I don’t know if I should."
"Go on, we have plenty more. Grab a gun, fill your pockets with ammo and buckle up a few frags, or plasma grenades, our treat"
"Plasma grenades?"
"Yea, grenades that explode launching plasma everywhere. Didn't they issue them to you lot?"
"err, no I’m afraid they didn’t sir."
"Ah, I see. Well there’s always a first eh..."
"Yes sir, I suppose there is."
I walked forward looking at the vast array of weapons; suddenly I saw one that caught my eye! It looked like sarges, it had the scope and large mag, and like sarges; it was beautifully crafted.
"Where did you get that one?" I pointed towards the weapon.
"Ah, a good choice"
"I didn’t ask that! I asked where you got it... Sir."
"We bought it from the traders, it was made in the Martian refineries. Best weapon producers in the universe them Martian weapon smiths. Not many guns can match that one, why do you ask?"
"Never mind, it isn't important..."
I lifted the gun, expecting it to be heavy; yet it was light, lighter than my weapon. I help the grip tightly and looked through the scope...
"Switch it on!"
"What?"
"Switch it on!"
I looked at the side of the gun; a number of buttons was on the side. I clicked the red on button, a small beep followed by a charging up sound followed.
"Now look through the scope..."
I put my eye up to the scope, and looked at the Lt. with it. It showed the distance he was from me with a green dot and picked out his weakened spots; highlighting them with green squares. I turned it of again, even more amazed than before. I pulled my standard SMG of my back and hooked the other gun on.
"What’s it called?"
"Anti Personnel Automatic Rifle or APAR for short"
"Right, where’s the ammo for it?"
"Over there" He pointed towards a heap of magazines with green tape wrapped round them.
I walked over picking up as many as could fit into my pockets.
"Ha ha... here..."
He handed me two straps, I noticed he was wearing them as well. He had his magazine fitted into the small pouches lined along the belts. I strapped them around my chest and loaded the mags into them. Suddenly a large bang, and the ground shook; the ceiling started to crack. A siren went off; the lights went off and were replaced by red flashing ones. People began to shout frantically.
"HURRY!"
I ran over to the grenades, grabbed a handful and hooked them to my waist. I jumped onto the ladder and began to climb, about half way up and another explosion went of. This time lumps of the ceiling began to fall, smoke and dust filled the rooms and people were running around shouting orders at others. I stood up, and helped two others close the hatch, loaded a mag into gun; trying my best not to admire its beauty. I followed the Lt. to another large door, there was about 12 men around the door; all aiming at it. I looked around and saw the barriers of steel with windows in them for shooting from in front of the doors around me. Sandbags with men pilled behind them also. Guns began to fire; you could hear the bullets ricochets of the doors; the screams of men, and the shouts of others. Most horrifically; the clank and thuds, and the shots of plasma. I knew what was coming, but still feared what would come through the door.


TO BE CONTINUED...