The year 1968.

 Dawn breaker.

 Johnathan Thompson and a handful of other air force pilots had been selected for a nonpublic team of astronauts who would participate in covert missions in space for their government. They wouldn't get the glory and fame of regular astronauts but the country needed them, besides, they were compensated pretty well.

 In early "67, they were told that for an unspecified period of time, their country had a secret satellite orbiting the moon. They were never told what it did or why it was there, just that a few weeks prior it had crashed to the surface of the dark side of the moon. for unknown reasons, and that the data it carried was crucial, and that the government needed to recover it, and thus was sending Thompson and two other astronauts to reclaim the satellite's memory module. 

 The equipment of the planned apollo 18 mission was essentially transferred to them, the apollo tem was furious of course, and they had reason to be afterall. It seemed that whomever they had been under was much more powerful than NASA. The whole mission was top secret obviously.

 Thompson had been officially deployed to the military while in reality he and his crew underwent intense training for the mission. After a couple of months, they found themselves standing on the launch pad in front of a behemoth of a rocket that would take them to the moon. Thompson was the mission commander, and a man, Lieutenant Carver was the lunar excursion module and helm pilot. Lieutenant Gracon was the command / service module. 

 The flight to the moon took rooughly two days. 

 After arriving, the crew made an orbit around it. Each time flying behind the horizon created by the moon itself. Thompson felt a bit of helplessness when their communication to the whole world was obscured by the spherical mass of rock and dust bellow them.

 The dark side of the moon was nothiong like the light side, which they saw on almost a daily basis. Instead of smooth grey fields and tranquil lunar seas. it was completely covered in dark deep craters and holes, as if it was slowly eaten away by the universe itself. The finally begin the descent to the surface. Thompson and Carver exchanged wishes of good luck with Ackerman in the lunar module named Charon. 

 They seperated from the CSM named Trinity. After anouncing Charon's touchdown, their response wasn't cheers and applause, but a meer "This is Trinity, congratulations Charon, I'll relay the news on the other side. Be safe out there guys"

 Just like that they were cut off from the rest of the world. Ackerman was their only link. While he was aboe the light side, he could communicate with ground command, and while above the dark side, he could communicate with them. Never both at once. Even though the CSM's orbital period was roughly two hours, they would be in touch for only thirty five minutes each orbit.

 They landed on a flat plane inside a huge crater. Contrary to beliefs, the sun shines on the dark side of the moon the same way as the light side, only that the amount of light depends on the lunar phase. It was still shining daylight in the place the had landed but they knew it would go dark in a few days. Thompson felt excited and curios for what awaited them in this alien world.

 They waited for about half an hour for the command's reply from Ackerman, and spent the time preparing their suits.

 "Command sends their congratulations. You were to proceed with the recovery" Said Ackerman.

 Everything was dead silent as he stepped on the surface of the moon. Thompso tried to think of something excessively inspiring to say, but those time were already over. With Carver, we assembled the rover, and after planting our flag next to the spacecraft, we drove off. 

 As they drove across the surface, Thompson saw what hw thought was a flash. A glare reflected by something metallic in the distance. Since it was fairly common to see flashes of light because of a physical phenomenon caused by the space radiation interracting with the eyes. Thompson didn't give it much thought and soon forgot about it. After driving for a couple of hours they reached the sattelite, or what was left of it.

 They immediately noticed that something wasn't right. There were dozens of footprints arount the probe, leading ti a set of two tracks dragging out into the distance. "What the hell is this?" asked carver in disbelief. "I don't know, but it seems somebody got what we came for before us" Thompson replied.

 Bth the tracks and the footprints were different from their's. Whoever took the data wasn't under the government they worked for. As Thompson expected they didn't find the data box. They found the part it was supposed to be i, but the box itself was missing. Luckily for them, they were just in contact with Ackerman, so they told him and described their findings.

 "This doesn't make any sense, who would take it? Russians. They don't even know about this program. Even if somebody took it how can we not be aware of that. How can the russians land on the moon without us noticing?" Ackerman responded. "As far as we know the Russians have no idea that we are here y'know" said carver over the radio. 

 "We're gonna follow the trail" Thompson cut off their conversation.

 "Are you guys sure about this" carver asked. Silence made the atmosphere very heavy.

 Thompson and Carver decided to follow the peculiar tracks leading away from the satellite's crash site. The eeriness of the situation weighed on them as they ventured into the desolate expanse of the moon's dark side.

 As they drove deeper into the lunar wilderness, the barren landscape seemed to stretch on endlessly. The dark side of the moon offered no respite, no shelter from the harsh cosmic environment. The sun's relentless glare persisted even as they descended into the shadows of craters.

 "Thompson, this whole situation is bizarre," Carver said through the radio as they continued their lunar pursuit. "Who could have possibly beaten us here and taken the data module? And why didn't we know about this prescence on the moon?"

 Thompson couldn't deny the gravity of the situation. They were in uncharted territory, chasing an unknown adversary on an alien world. The weight of their mission, the secrecy surrounding it, and the enigmatic events unfolding before them left a sense of unease in the pit of his stomach.

 As they followed the trail, they couldn't help but wonder about the footprints. They were clearly not their own, and the tracks were unlike anything they had seen before. The trail led them to the edge of a massive crater, one that seemed to swallow the horizon.

 At the rim of the crater, they finally saw something that sent shivers down their spines. It was a piece of the data module, half-buried in the lunar soil. The sight of the damaged module raised more questions than answers. Who had taken it, and why had they left a piece behind?

 Thompson reached for the module, carefully securing it in a containment bag. It was a small victory, but it meant they were on the right track. They needed to find the rest of it and uncover the mystery behind the covert lunar presence.

 "We can't stay here, Carver. We need to keep moving, follow this trail," Thompson said, his voice determined. "We have to recover that data module, no matter what it takes."

 With renewed determination, they continued to trace the tracks, their rover kicking up lunar dust as they advanced further into the unknown. The radio chatter between them and Ackerman remained sparse, as if the isolation of the moon had swallowed their voices.

 Hours passed as they pursued the elusive trail across the lunar landscape. The once bright daylight began to wane as the moon's phases shifted, casting long shadows across the craters. The moon's serene desolation had transformed into an eerie foreboding world.

 As they ventured deeper into the dark side, their mission evolved from a simple recovery operation into a quest for the truth. Who were the mysterious figures that had been on the moon before them? What secrets did the missing data module hold? And what would they discover as they ventured further into an unknown reaches of the lunar surface?

 With each passing mile, the moon revealed more of its mysteries, and Thompson and Carver were determined to unravel them, no matter the risks they faced. They were astronauts on a clandestine mission, chasing shadows on the dark side of the moon, and they were about to uncover secrets that would change the course of their mission and, perhaps, the fate of the whole world.