  Active colloids and liquid crystals are capable of locally converting the
macroscopically-supplied energy into directional motion and promise a host of
new applications, ranging from drug delivery to cargo transport at the
mesoscale. Here we uncover how topological solitons in liquid crystals can
locally transform electric energy to translational motion and allow for the
transport of cargo along directions dependent on frequency of the applied
electric field. By combining polarized optical video microscopy and numerical
modeling that reproduces both the equilibrium structures of solitons and their
temporal evolution in applied fields, we uncover the physical underpinnings
behind this reconfigurable motion and study how it depends on the structure and
topology of solitons. We show that, unexpectedly, the directional motion of
solitons with and without the cargo arises mainly from the asymmetry in
rotational dynamics of molecular ordering in liquid crystal rather than from
the asymmetry of fluid flows, as in conventional active soft matter systems.
