Earth Orbit.
A barely perceptible trail of deep-blue exhaust traced an arc as a blurred phantom accelerated out of Earth Orbit and headed toward the moon.
Soon, the cloaked Sea Wolf reached the moon. After circling halfway around it, the ship slowly descended into a crater on the far side that was just large enough to accommodate it, kicking up a cloud of dust as it landed.
This was near Third Base, one of the seven lunar branch bases. Here, Nie Yun would give the Sea Wolf a phoenix-like rebirth!
To that end, he had disabled all virtual connection login permissions for the Sea Wolf and moved its zero-gravity laboratory into the former International Space Station.
By now, the station had been completely consumed by Mechanical Insects and remodeled and expanded. All life-support and functional areas had been removed, turning it into an experimental cargo container floating above Earth.
Countless roaming Space Spies occasionally brought back space debris or captured meteoroids and sent them crashing into the station, where they merged with it and were consumed. The station was slowly growing this way, while surplus non-steel materials were made into various laboratory consumables for the scientists inside.
Another benefit was the tremendous cleanup of the space environment in Earth Orbit. In a sense, Nie Yun really had stayed true to his original aspirations: he was a super "environmentalist" who had saved Earth hundreds of billions of dollars in cleanup costs!
Normally, this space station would serve as a laboratory. When necessary, however, it could also replace the Sea Wolf as Nie Yun's military presence in Earth Orbit, maintaining military pressure on the nations of Earth!
"Hiss!" The Sea Wolf's hatch opened, and Nie Yun stepped out in casual clothes, followed by an excited Little Octopus, Eight Stripes.
That was right-Nie