The Doctor stood slowly. Outside the panoramic windows of the poolroom, he could see a black, swirling vortex of death—literally. And it was rolling straight towards them.
"I thought you said this was a leisure planet!" Peri accused.
"It was," said the Doctor. "Now, run." He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her towards the TARDIS.
"But I don't understand! Just bones as far as the eye can see!" Her voice warbled. It had indeed been a horrific sight, imposed over the otherwise untouched beauty of the vacation spot.
"That's the Neracle! A roaming cosmic plague that feeds off organic life on a planetary scale. Now come on!"
They pushed through the double-doors and started sprinting towards their only means off the now-dead planet. But the Doctor began to veer off course. "Keep running!" he instructed her.
"You're going back for that coat!?"
He had left his multi-colored patchwork coat hanging on a stand in the check-in lobby, complaining about the poor service of the place. Now his griping seemed morosely ironic in retrospect. "Just because this is a disaster, doesn't mean I shouldn't be fashionable!" He grabbed it and off he went, slipping into it with customary ease.
"'Fashionable'!" Peri scoffed.
But further banter was preempted by a horrifying sight. The Neracle had swarmed over the TARDIS, engulfing it. The Doctor and Peri skidded to a halt. They were surrounded.
"So this is it, then," Peri said fatally.
"Maybe not." He began to step towards it. The blackness was pulsing as it closed in on them. That was not the behavior of a mere force of nature. It had shown strategy.
Which meant…
The Doctor focused all his telepathic prowess, tapped into the TARDIS only a few meters away. He raised his hand mere inches from the obsidian wisps and shouted in every way possible way, "STOP!"
The Neracle froze.
"We are living beings, like you! Like the life forms you just consumed back there! Intelligent, reasoning, precious! And you snuffed them out! What do you have to say for yourself?"
The thing flashed with red and purple streaks.
The Doctor smiled. "It's all right. I had a feeling you didn't know any better. Go on, now."
Peri had no idea what was going on. But the cloud moved away from the TARDIS and motioned for her to follow him inside as he swaggered toward his ship. Not wanting to risk upsetting the cloud, she waited til the doors had safely sealed them inside before she spoke again.
"What was that all about?"
"Hmm? Oh, the Neracle wasn't evil or malicious. Merely ignorant. It feeds on organic life as I said, but it had no idea that it had been eating sentient life forms."
"No idea?" she said unbelievably. "What about all those structures we built around us?"
"Don't termites do the same?" the Doctor pointed out. "Anyway, I gave it a telepathic list of things to look out for next time. Hopefully, it shan't make the same mistake again. All in a day's work."
Peri just watched him, dumbfounded as he began to flick and pop switches on the control panel of his ship. "You're unbelievable."
"Believe it."
"So, if this was 'all in a day's work,' wasn't this supposed to be a vacation?"
The Doctor grinned. "Yes, I suppose it was. Let's try again, shall we? Tell me Peri, have you ever wanted to go skating over a diamond lake?"
He threw the switch, the TARDIS shuddered, and they were off to the next misadventure.