"I understand closing ranks." She pulls away, she closes herself off; Jim sees it, reads it as easy as everything else. He knows precisely why. "You're all you have out there, and as far as you know, there's no end in sight. You'd go nuts and your crew would dissolve if you didn't absorb the hit. I respect that."

But your exec was still a dick.

Minding his manners - somewhat - Jim doesn't say it out loud. But it doesn't take a telepath, etc. He also technically disagrees that if orders were in place, he didn't actually have a right to contradict them, but that's a fiddly, pointless thing to say, and he'll never know all the nuance or details. He just knows his own experiences, which are ... all weird, all nuts.

"I'm in your corner. There's not another one for me to be in." They're friends. They're peers.