Joining the others in the hanger Mason lugged with him several armfuls of small cages setting them up on a convenient crate. The teen eyed the cat Monty suspiciously as two white rats, a curious little ferret, and a blue parakeet scurried and flapped about in their separate containers. Ensuring the cat couldn’t get at the smaller critters Mason turned to engage the others, an air of relief about him.

	“Thank goodness about Emma,” he murmured once Tammy finished her spiel. Mason felt as if a great weight lifted from his shoulders at this good news. He’d been blaming himself over the past few hours for failing to help her, but at least she’d been resourceful enough to save herself. He still felt sick to his stomach at the memory of his desertion. He should have kept searching. Returning to the present Mason motioned towards the rows of cages he’d set up explaining his idea behind them. “If we’re going to survive this we won’t be able to fight the yeerks in open battle.” He shot an annoyed glare towards Lalna. “Don’t you remember their dracon beams? They’ll melt right through that armor, or any animal’s flesh. We’ll have to fight them from the shadows, hit them where they least expect it, when they least expect it. I’ve been reading up on military experts like Sun Tzu, and he says deception and information is everything in war. So, I thought one way to spy on them would be to use small, unconventional morphs like rats, or small birds.

	“I work at a pet store, so I was able to get these. But maybe we could capture a crow, or a sparrow, or something less obvious then a parakeet for a flying morph later. I’ve always wanted to fly.” Mason shook his head, kneeling down to scratch Alfie’s ears. “Of course that’s after we master these dog morphs. We don’t want another situation like what happened with Emma. So who wants to go first?”