Harsh, but shit, sometimes he deserves that kind of kick in the ass. Samus is many things, but an enabler she is not. Stopping the pity party before the train can truly leave the station is probably the best thing to do, not that Jim appreciates the verbal slap in the face at the moment.

But he's also learned that arguing with Samus can be an exercise in stupidity, especially when you haven't put any thought into it first. And part of the point of the post-mortem on his horribly blundered mission was to get him to stop reacting impulsively and emotionally to everything without stopping to consider all the angles first.

He fumes a little as he keeps up the pace, an uncomfortable tension in his back from all the stress he's putting himself through - both emotionally and in terms of exercise, and decides that he's not so much angry with her as he is with himself.

Yeah, okay, what else is new.

"There's that," he grudgingly admits. "It's not a fair comparison either. I saw him at the end of a long and successful career, and I'm just getting started." A thought does occur to him, and he mulls it over before tentatively saying, "I did make captain before he did."