Crew: ____________________

The Bast — "Bad Kitty" to every crew that has ever ridden one — is the standard fusion main battle tank of the Periphery March's expeditionary forces, and the Common Heart program's proudest piece of arithmetic: its powerplant is the StarHeart 240, the same engine that drives every BattleMech in the MMW catalog. The logic is expeditionary logistics distilled. The fuel-cell 'Mal' family rules at home, where the hydrogen chain is infrastructure; but a raid or rapid deployment cannot haul its bowsers with it, and a fusion tank that eats from the same supply train, spares bin, and technician pool as the 'Mechs beside it makes a landing force's logistics one problem instead of two. Fusion is too expensive for reserve formations, and the program has never pretended otherwise — the Bast is the away game, and it is priced like one.