Placebo

Description

On a distant planet, in a distant future, someone has tampered with the medical supplies for a military research unit. It’s resulting in violence, depression, and other changes in temperament in the soldiers—even leading to assault . . . and murder.

Colonel Lindz must find the culprit, as well as determine the reason, before the entire camp runs to chaos. She enlists the aid of Sergeant Major Mallory, who doesn’t always play by the rulebook, but in this case, Lindz considers making new rules . . .
CW: death, assault, sex, uses some adult language

If you’re a fan of Star Trek, you might like Placebo. Humans have explored and plundered much of the universe, and they keep pushing further. An exploratory mission on a distant outcrop of the universe turn dangerous when someone starts playing a fatal game with the soldiers’ hormones–they are given personalized shots that treat underlying health issues and keeps them on an “even keel”. Without these shots, the soldiers can succumb to a chronic disease they don’t even know about, or plummet off the deep end and turn violent.

As more soldiers are given placebos, the adverse reactions mount.

Is it Command Central using the soldiers as pawns in an experiment to see what happens when they take them off the shots? Is it a plot to sabotage the exploratory mission? After all, the corporate observers aren’t being affected at all. Or is it something else altogether?