Dana made a face. "I was hoping we wouldn't see anyone else till we got to the pickup point."
"So was I—but not even I can have everything my own way all the time."
"No," Dana agreed with a chuckle, "you just come close. Maybe if we leave now?"
"I think it's too late." Jason stood as half a dozen men entered the clearing. "Good afternoon, gentles."
"Not for you it isn't," the obvious leader said. "You don't go anywhere without a couple thousand credits petty cash, Mister Jason—hand it over."
"In the mountains?" Jason laughed. "Not even I carry cash where there's nothing to buy and no bodyguards."
"Like hell," the leader said pleasantly. "Hand it over, Jason, or we take it out of your hide."
"I told you, I don't have anything to hand over."
"Then we'll take what you don't have." The leader gave a hand signal, and his men surrounded Jason. He grunted and swore at them, his voice holding a mixture of disgusted anger and pain.
"NO!" Dana shouted, jumping on the back of one man and wrapping her left arm around his throat, her right hand against the back of his head, her left reaching for her right elbow for a neck-breaking hold.