Enrique Muniz Enrique Muniz was a Human Starfleet crewman who served during the late - 24th century . History . In his youth , Muniz attended Carnival s with his father . He also had the same birthday as Captain Benjamin Sisko ' s son , Jake . ( ) Deep Space 9 . During the 2370s , Muniz served on the Bajoran space station Deep Space 9 and its assigned Federation starship , the . In 2372 , he was on board the " Defiant " when it rendezvoused with a Karemma starship in the Gamma Quadrant . When two Jem ' Hadar attack ship s attacked the Karemma , they tried to escape by entering the atmosphere of a nearby gas giant . The " Defiant " followed the ships into the atmosphere where it was fired upon and severely damaged . Chief Miles O ' Brien sent Muniz to a Jefferies tube to assist Jadzia Dax . When the internal force field s began to collapse in that section , Muniz managed to get out , but Jadzia was left behind . Muniz later returned to engineering to help O ' Brien and Stevens to repair the ship . When Lieutenant Commander Worf arrived to take command of the ship after Captain Sisko , he criticized Muniz and Stevens . O ' Brien reminded him that neither of them had attended the Academy and were not used to be commanding a starship . Stevens and Muniz later came up with a way to modify the deflector array to turn it into a phaser emitter . Their plan worked and the Jem ' Hadar ship was destroyed . ( ) Several months later , Muniz took charge of an engineering team on DS9 after O ' Brien was recovering from his Argrathi punishment . ( ) In early - 2373 , Muniz was part of a Starfleet survey team from DS9 that traveled to the Gamma Quadrant planet Torga IV to assess the possibility of establishing a mining operation to extract some of the planet ' s rich deposits of cormaline . A Dominion ship crash ed on the planet and was later followed by another who destroyed the team ' s runabout and landed Jem ' Hadar troops . Muniz was wounded by the Dominion weapons , but was saved by O ' Brien and Worf and taken into the ship . The anti - coagulant in the Dominion weapons soon took their toll on Muniz and his bleeding continued . O ' Brien and Worf clashed after Worf told him that Muniz was near death . As time went on , Muniz soon lost feeling in his legs and became delusional , believing he was watching a carnival with his father . Muniz eventually died of his wounds during the crew ' s attempt to use the ship ' s engines to escape . After the " Defiant " arrived , rescued the crew and towed the Dominion ship off the planet and back to the Alpha Quadrant , O ' Brien sat with Muniz ' s body , performing a traditional Irish wake . He was joined by Worf who commented on its similarities to the Klingon tradition of " ak ' voh " . During his time on Deep Space 9 , Muniz had become a good friend of O ' Brien , whom he called " jefe " , Spanish for " chief " . O ' Brien affectionately called him " Quique " . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Enrique Muniz was played by actor F . J . Rio in his first of three " Star Trek " roles . The script for " Starship Down " describes Muniz as simply , " " a young enlisted engineer " " . Of a scene in the " Defiant " s engine room , it makes note of the fact Muniz and the other engineering crewmen didn ' t go to Starfleet Academy , saying , " " they ' re not as polished as our people , and they have their own work habits and codes of behavior . " " In the script for " The Ship " , Muniz is further described as , " " a young Human crewman with an easy , infectious smile . " " The choice of bringing back Muniz for " The Ship " was an important one for the writing staff but looking back , they didn ' t think it quite worked out the way they had hoped . " " Ira [ Steven Behr ] wanted to establish that there was an inner circle amongst the engineers , guys who hung out together , " " said writer Hans Beimler , " " and that there was a special place in the heart of O ' Brien for his engineering guys . Muniz was one of those guys . We tried to build a relationship between the two of them at the beginning . " " Commenting on that relationship , Behr explained , " " The whole idea was to show that the engineers , the tech guys , have a brotherhood that ' s different from just the old Starfleet brotherhood . We wanted to bond O ' Brien with this guy and have it mean something . But the scenes didn ' t play like two guys who were really comfortable with each other . It wound up being about O ' Brien and a guy who ' s dying . The audience never came to care enough about Muniz because they didn ' t see O ' Brien ' s investment in Muniz . " " ( " " , p . 371 ) Apocrypha . Muniz appears in the " Prophecy and Change " short story " The Orb of Opportunity " which states he was a part of Chief O ' Brien ' s team aboard the which assisted Kai Winn Adami and General Lenaris Holem in their search for a blindvault that held the Orb of Contemplation . Fabian Stevens , one of the main characters in the " SCE " eBook " War Stories , Book 2 " ( and engineering crewman in " Starship Down " ) , remembers Muniz as , " " a good guy , great engineer , awful poker player . " " In " Saturn ' s Children " and " Rise Like Lions " , Muniz ' mirror universe counterpart is depicted as a member of the Terran Rebellion .