'Just make sure the generators don't freeze. Use Captain Des to his full potential, and you'll be fine.'

'Thank you, Obi-wan. I'm sure we will see you soon. If there's any updates, please contact me.'

In the hanger of the ice cave, Obi-wan's ship was being prepared by the 336th legion. As clones walked back and forth in their white coats and snow boots, the same face occupied the hanger that held the ships of the party. The interceptor was ready to take-off, and it was awaiting its pilot. But the farewell was long, as Sol was drawing out the last-minute advice in an attempt to keep Obi-wan on Hoth.

'Remember Sol, there is help at hand,' Obi-wan lowered his head to make sure Sol could hear him. 'If you need assistance, we will send someone out to you. But if everything goes to plan, I know you won't need it.'

Sol let a smile tug onto her lips and when Obi-wan's hand relaxed on her shoulder, she felt a warm comfort in her chest. Whether it was his presence through the Force, or just the feeling of being trusted, Sol's muscles ceased from their tense state. For a moment, she felt like she could take over the mission without any hiccups. 

The Jedi Master smiled down at her with his eyes filled with trust, and Sol could see that Obi-wan was genuine in his words. He had prepared her with what she would need on Hoth and he had thought of every situation that could threaten the security of the mission. Obi-wan was ready to head back to Coruscant into the threat of terrorism, but he knew that he would left someone in charge who was capable of carrying out the mission.

'Send my support to Ahsoka,' Sol said with a small mist of smoke exhaling from her breath. 'May the Force be with you.'

'May the Force be with you, Sol. Good luck.'

Obi-wan turned to head towards his ship. Sol stepped out of the interceptor's runway path and stood with the clones who had run the required maintenance on its engine. Obi-wan could be seen in the cockpit while R4-P17 was secured in the wing. The droid was upset to be leaving the planet without being able to venture across its terrain, but Sol was glad to not be responsible for the fearless droid.

The engines roared and Obi-wan could be seen communicating with R4 through the windows of the cockpit. Sol felt the inevitable dread fill her stomach as Obi-wan's ship rose from the floor and headed for the ice cave's opening. She felt the need to leap in front to stop the Master from leaving her alone on Hoth, and she clenched her glove hands to stop herself from traumatising the entire 336th legion with her certain death. With a clench of her teeth, Sol watched Obi-wan leave the hanger and fly out into the snowy air. As the sounds of engines faded, she knew that the man had exited Hoth's atmosphere, and she was now in charge.

'We can no longer contact General Kenobi, ma'am. He has left the Hoth system through hyperspace,' Captain Des informed Sol as he stopped next to his general. Sol glanced to her Captain and thanked him, before looking to the hanger's entrance in hopes that Obi-wan's ship would reappear.

'Are you alright, General?' a clone asked from her left.

'Yes,' Sol replied and forced a smile. 'Don't worry about me, guys. I'm sure that things will blow over back home, and we'll return without a worry.'

---

Sol's definition of a hummanoid, was that of a clone. Without another face in the icy base, Sol knew what the next person looked like when she walked to the control room, to the hanger, and to her sleeping quarters. Clad in her blue coat that she was sure had begun to smell from its everyday use, Sol passed clones in their white coats and dark hair every hour of every day. The only thing that kept her sane in between duties was meditation, where she rid her mind of the clones and thought about places like Naboo, a summer sunset on Coruscant, and what it was like to be in the presence of Anakin.

Captain Des knew not to disturb his general when she was in her quarters during the day. If she wasn't viewing maps or hearing a debriefing, Sol was sat on the floor of her room with her eyes closed and her mind in the realm of the Force. Des turned any clone away who wished to speak with Sol during these times, knowing that the general was on the brink of a nervous breakdown without her meditation sessions.

Ever since Obi-wan left Hoth with R4, there had been no contact with Hoth from the Jedi Order. When Sol had asked to be updated on the bomb situation, she thought that Obi-wan would send a transmission within a day. When there was no connection, Sol assumed that he was busy. The next day, she thought that Anakin would contact her and say that Ahsoka and Revan were okay. But the sun set over the white horizon, and there was nothing.

Sol tried to send a transmission herself and see if that initiated a reply. But days passed, and her message was left to play to itself in the infinite database of transmissions.

To distract her scrambled mind, Sol ventured outside of the base into the air that she once despised. With her hood down, her boots crunched into the piles of snow and the light wind blew her bangs away from her face. From the stark whiteness of the surrounding snow and clear blue sky, Sol's purple eyes were forced into a squint. She thought that she would want to run back into the base when she first felt the coldness of Hoth's surface, but the freshness was welcomed by the troubled Jedi.

Although unlivable, Sol and her clone legion had lived on Hoth for a total of two and a half weeks. It was painful and maddening to be so isolated. Des had done his best to make the base warm yet cold enough to keep the walls stable in their icy structures. But waking up every morning wrapped in countless thermal blankets and changing into the same thermal gear sent Sol spiraling. It was always cold and her lips had dried to the point of needing bacta gel to treat them. And without someone else to complain to that wasn't a clone who said 'not much longer now, General', Sol was dying for a day in the meadows or lakes of Naboo. It made her realise how much she missed the planet she had only been to once, and she made it her goal to head back there when she was free from Jedi duties. Perhaps she and Anakin could go with Padme, and they could spend some much needed time together to unwind.

'Ani?' Sol tried with her eyes closed. 'Can you hear me?'

Sol couldn't believe that she was trying to connect with Anakin through the Force. There was no way she would be able to reach him from Hoth, but she had reached the stage of desperation. How she wished to hear his smooth voice, even if it was just in her head. She wanted to feel his orange signature that made her feel like she could never be harmed while in his presence. Anakin's fresh smell was all that she wanted to breathe in, and not the sharp scent of cold snow.

'General?' a clone's voice brought Sol out of her sorrowful stare at the never-ending white hills. She turned to see the clone with his hood around his head and his face the same as every other clone that worked at the base.

'We've just had a message from Coruscant. We are to return to the temple and put the base into sleep mode.'

'What? Sleep mode will drain the generators.'

'It will continue to send out a signal to scanners nearby. It'll feign a Republic presence here on Hoth for a maximum of five months. I'm sure that by then, we will return and occupy this base again.'

Sol had waited days for this news but had expected a hologram of Obi-wan or Anakin to be its messenger. The base could sustain itself for a month on its own before it started eating into the generators' power. But this would be temporary, and once the generators gave out, the base would be left to freeze inside the cave of ice.

'Show me this message, please,' she said after a moment and the clone nodded. Sol walked back into the base with the clone in the lead, and she couldn't help but feel uneasy about the Jedi Order's instructions.

The clone led her into the control room where screens showed scanners and maps. Stools were occupied by clones as they surveyed the planet's surface and atmosphere for any sign of foreign life. Besides some wampas that never ventured near the base, there was no sign of any activity in the frozen wilderness. Their mission had been dull, and they were about to ditch it all because of a singular message from the Jedi Order.

'Here, General,' the clone stepped aside to allow Sol to view the screen on the controls. In Galactic Basic, was a message reading,

'Return to Coruscant with all supplies and members of the party. Leave generators to power the base and leave Hoth as it was.' 

'And there was no signature left with this?'

'Nothing, ma'am.'

Sol exhaled through her nostrils. It was strange and out of character for the Order to not use a hologram transmission for such instructions. She thought that Anakin would at least contact her to say that the Order was going to send a message. Had he forgotten about her? Had the temple suffered yet another terrorist attack? Why had no one bothered to contact Sol?

Suddenly a thought hit her. Obi-wan had weaseled Sol's secrets out of her about Satele Shan before he left at the Jedi Council's urgent call. Had he told them about Sol's involvement with the Force ghost, and therefore a motive for Revan's breakage into the Jedi records? Was this going to be her call for imprisonment once she entered the Jedi Temple?

No. Obi-wan had been sincere when he said that he would not tell the Council. But what had Revan found in the records? Had Satele Shan done something that awful that Obi-wan had gone back on his word? 

'Pack everything,' Sol ordered with a boom in her voice. 'Initiate the directing of the scanners to the generators when the powe runs out. We leave in two hours.'

'Yes, General,' Captain Des, who had joined her in the control room, turned to the clones on their stools. 'You heard the General! The generators are to be ready and everything is to be back on the ship!'

Sol didn't stay to make sure that the legion followed their captain's orders. She turned on her heel and headed to her quarters to pack her things. The fear of what waited for her at the temple was crippling. Her stomach churned and she thought she was going to be sick. She had to remember her meditation and used the Force to calm her heaving chest.  

Her mind went into an automatic drive. She didn't remember taking her duffle bag of things out of her quarters and heading for the hanger. She didn't remember talking to Captain Des about if the generators were operational. She didn't remember getting into the carrier ship with the legion in the hull and taking off with perfect piloting technique.

It wasn't until the rushes of hyperspace occupied the windshield that Sol realised where she was. They had left Hoth in two hours and the ice planet continued to send out a signal that told approaching ships that it was occupied by the Galactic Republic. They were now on their way to Coruscant and Sol, who had taken off her coat and gloves in the numbing process, was sat in the cockpit alone. 

With her hands gripping the controls, Sol pulled the ship out of hyperspace and descended down to Coruscant. Her knuckles grew white, and she missed the feeling of her fingerless gloves that were deep in her duffle bag. She couldn't seem to fulfill her lungs yearning for breath, and no amount of meditation could slow her heartbeat. She was scared, and hoped that the Jedi Council would be merciful with their punishment.

As she lowered the ship onto the landing pad of the Jedi Temple, Sol couldn't even indulge in the sight of the city she had missed. The sight of speeders with their roofs down didn't excite her for the warmer weather, and the sight of Padme's apartment building off in the distance didn't make her wish to visit the senator after so long a part.  

The ramp sat open on the landing pad. Clones exited in their usual armour and their helmets covered their faces. As they unloaded some of the ship's supplies, Sol stepped out of the hull and trudged down to the first solid ground she had been on in two weeks. The smell of pollution hit her nostrils, but she didn't cringe or wish for it to be different. She barely noticed the wind that blew through the city, and when she turned to look at the temple, she stopped at the sight of Anakin's face. 

In his dark robes and with his blonde hair shaggy around his head, Anakin stood on the strip that led to the landing pad. Without R2 by his side, he looked lonesome, and the closer Sol got to him, the more distraught he looked. Her steps were slow and shaky, as if fearful he would lunge at her and scream 'why did you have to be related to her?! Why, Solaris?!'.  

Stopping in front of him, Sol felt that his Force signature was pale and dull. With his hands by his sides, Anakin's eyes bored into Sol's. She had missed him so much but was too afraid to take his hand into hers. She thought that he felt the same, but when he used his gloved hand to take hold of her waist, Sol was engulfed in Anakin's arms before she could utter a word.

'She's gone,' he mumbled against her shoulder. 'Snips is gone, and it's all the Order's fault.'