Kriskr loved the setup. The patience. The perfect, smooth precision. It was a rush that never got old.

The insectile bounty hunter arrived on Tarsh in the morning, local time, on a passenger spaceflight. She watched the planet grow larger out the viewport, the slightly green oceans and one large continent growing in her sight. She waited until they were about to dock before standing, stretching with a clicking sound from her exoskeleton, and going to the closet. She pulled out her clothing, a fancy black-on-black suit with integrated body armor. She pulled out her pack.

She pulled out her guns. A pistol, and two rifles, one ballistic and one laser-based for shooting through translucent windows. They were both sleek, black, and very expensive, with scopes and various modifications.

She shivered a little as she stroked one of the rifles before setting them out on her bed.

Kriskr dressed quickly, and efficiently. She shouldered her pack and slid the guns into the belt and harnesses she wore over the suit. She was almost silent as she did this. She was usually almost silent. A quick neural signal, a thought pattern she had performed so many times it was almost unconscious, brought up her augmented reality HUD, and she flicked on a soft song, playing just for her through the neural link with the computer currently docked connected to her transdermal neural jack..

Kriskr loved that. The ability to adjust her body, her brain, her everything to suit her will. There was a computer interfacing with her brain. Symbiotic gene-spliced organisms enhanced the function of her organs. Her exoskeleton was reinforced with microfiber weaves. One of her eyes, though it had the normal insectile look of her race, was heavily modified with a broad-spectrum light amplifying artificial retina. Ultralight wings extended from her shoulders, currently hidden under her coat.

She was exactly what she wanted to be. The power, the rush of knowing she could choose what she was on such a fundamental level, was beyond thrilling.

She opened the door and stepped out as the ship docked, listening to the normal voice of the ship AI informing passengers that they could exit the ship through their sector’s airlock. She got in line, waited, stepped out the airlock into a bustling spaceport. People of all sorts of species, everything from mammals to arthropods like herself to truly strange beings, were coming and going about their business. Tarsh was a cosmopolitan world.

She ignored them, ignored the people who recognized her from her videos, flicked on the camera built into her eye with a thought. It wasn’t streaming live - she’d edit and trim the video as necessary before uploading it to her private members-only page.

She moved out through security and onto the street, where she hailed a cab. Tarsh, like most Fringe worlds, used relatively primitive landbound vehicles for transportation. At least they were automated; she’d been on some worlds where she actually had to deal with a driver to get a cab. Here, she just got in, tapped in her destination, and sat back to enjoy the drive.

She’d never been here before, and like every planet she’d been to, there was a beauty to it. In the crowded city streets, there was a vibrant life to the place. She loved the passion, the glorious thrumming heartbeat of the high rises and alleyways. The sky was a slightly greener tone than she was used to, like the ocean - a feature, she’d been told, of a slightly different atmospheric composition than she was used to seeing in oxygen-driven atmospheres. She didn’t much mind. The filters and rebreathers built into her lungs would deal with it.

She brought up screens on her HUD as she rode, flicking through information. The dossier she’d been given when she took the job was very thorough - not just the target’s personal information, but details on his location, security, skills, and all manner of minutiae. The insect read through them, one page after another, flicking through them. She’d read them before, on the ship, but she liked to refresh. It was the professional thing to do.

The drive took about an hour, out to the edge of the city. The crime lord she’d been contracted for was wealthy enough to afford an estate out far enough to have a nice view and avoid the congestion of high-density urban sprawl, but close enough to have the conveniences of the city available to him. It was an expensive place for a sprawling estate. He’d done well for himself.

She was early. She always showed up early. She got out of the car four kilometers away from the estate, authorized the charge to her account, hiked up her pack and started walking. She was fast. Her legs were also augmented, bionic suspension systems supporting and accelerating her movement.

She took less than twenty minutes to cover the mile and a half to her destination, a hillside about two kilometers from the estate. It had a sheer rock face on the side facing the estate, the top of which had been completely cleared of vegetation. If she were on the top of it, her silhouette would stand out horribly clearly.

Fortunately for her, she knew what she was doing. She’d already surveyed the topographical maps and satellite imaging of the area surrounding the estate. She had a plan. She always had a plan.

She hiked up the cliff, looked around to make sure she was unobserved, and jumped off, all in total silence. The ultralight wings unfolded after an exhilarating moment of freefall, catching her and allowing her to hover. She moved over to the rock face, grabbed it. Tiny metal spurs extended out of her hands and feet, digging into the rock and holding her in place.

One hand dug in her pack, pulling several  self-driving pitons out of the pocket she kept them in. She placed them against the rock, one at a time, and the devices quickly drilled themselves into the stone. A few moments later, she was hanging by the harness from two of the pitons, her pack hanging from another next to her.

Next came the camouflage netting. She spread it out, pushing the adhesive pads onto the rock face. The light, high-quality netting shifted, automatically detecting the color of the backdrop and changing to match in color and texture. It would also mask her heat signature. Short of a physical examination, there was very little to show that this was not just an outcropping of rock. At half a mile distant, all but invisible.

Next came the rifle. She was using the ballistic anti-materiel rifle for this job. She pulled it out of the harness, set up the struts to hold it steady braced against the rock wall. Her AR HUD loaded up information, rangefinders and windspeed info and everything else she would need to line up the shot. She screwed on the sound suppressor, checked that it was loaded. It was a hot load, 12.7x99 mm HEAP. Checked everything over again.

Finally came the waiting. She was feeling the familiar heat inside her, the thrill of anticipation. Soon, she would change the world. She knew the rush was coming, and the anticipation of that moment when everything changed was enough to drive her mad with hunger.

She tried to engage with her fans online, through the Net, but she couldn’t focus on it and soon gave up. Instead, she slipped one hand into her pants, fingering the join of her legs. Like most advanced species, hers used internal fertilization to reproduce, and they had a sex drive.

Her fingers found the opening of her vagina, slid inside, chitinous exoskeleton gliding against the softer, skin-like epithelia of her hole. She’d been told that her species had higher sensitivity in the vagina than mammals to make up for the absence of a clitoris, and that had certainly seemed true in her encounters with women of other species.

She didn’t take her time. Didn’t build up to it. With a thought she brought up pornographic imagery and a heavy, driving drumbeat, and she set to work hard and fast. It was quick, businesslike, efficient. There would be time for the more elaborate and sensual methods later, after the job, when she was rewatching the video with a lover.

For now she was quick and businesslike, driving two fingers into herself. Within a minute, she was twisting and arching in the harness, her hips thrusting up into her hand, gasping. Another minute and she stiffened, the drumbeat accelerating to a frenetic crescendo, hips rolling rapidly. The orgasm crested and washed over her, followed by another, then a third, her body stiff and desperate as her fingers twitched and spasmed inside of her.

Then it passed, and she pulled them out with a smile. Grabbed the gun. Looked at the estate, looking it over with the scope. Waited some more, but now she was calmer, more relaxed.

Within an hour, people started arriving for the party. She waited, watched them drive up to the estate. Each arrival was screened by the guards before being allowed in. They milled around inside, half a dozen species chattering in half a dozen languages or more. She kept scanning.

Fourteen minutes later, the facial recognition software built into her scope dinged a match, highlighted it on her HUD. She looked at it, checking that it was her target. It was. The pale orange fur and old-fashioned glasses were a dead giveaway. Her mandibles twitched with excitement.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Check windspeed. Adjust rifle. Breathe in. Check drop. Breathe out. Slide her finger into the trigger guard. Breathe in. Check there were no civilians in the immediate vicinity. Breathe out. Slow and steady.

Breathe in. On the exhale, slow and smooth like she’d been trained, gently squeeze the trigger.

She felt the recoil first, a heavy kick that the brace against the cliff face caught. Then she saw the bullet strike the window.

It was armored, of course - the crime lord was not an idiot. But there is armor, and then there is armor. A 12.7x99mm HEAP round was designed to penetrate light tank armor. The bulletproof composite of the window, though certainly up to the task of stopping sidearm projectiles, was not designed to take an anti-materiel round.

The explosion shattered the window. The crime lord barely started to turn to face the noise before the armor-piercing core of the round hit him in the head. The explosion of orange-grey gore sprayed across the wall, across the nearby guests. Kriskr didn’t see the body drop. She was too busy cumming from the rush, the thrill, the sheer excitement of the power she held in that moment that she squeezed the trigger. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe. Her world was defined by a rush of pleasure and power and satiation that no other rush, no drug or sex or neural stimulation, could come close to.

Her body, once again stiff, relaxed after about five seconds of sheer orgasmic bliss. Moving quickly, she put the rifle into its place in the harness, returned the camo netting to the pack, detached from the pitons and flew up the cliff.

An hour later, she was back in town, saw the breaking headlines about the assassination of a suspected gangster. Her mandibles chittered with satisfied glee. She stepped onto the passenger ship, already pulling up the video in her HUD to start editing. Her audience was waiting.