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I am a Klingon! An emissary of the High Council. I will not submit to being searched by you or anyone else on this ship!
„
~ Kell, exposing himself as a Romulan Agent.
Kell was a villainous Klingon male featured in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Mind's Eye who was a secret agent for the RomulanEmpire.
He was portrayed by the late Larry Dobkin.
An older man by the mid 24th century, Kell worked as one of the Klingon Empire's Ambassadors to the Federation. He was also in the employ of the Romulans. Seeing a chance to fracture the alliance between the Federation and the Empire, the Romulans began supplying rebels on Krios with weapons and material designed to look like Starfleet materials. These were intercepted by Klingon Governor Vagh, who harbored a strong dislike of the Federation. Vagh accused the Federation of giving weapons to Kriosian rebels, and the Enterprise-D was sent to investigate - with Kell on board ostensibly to act as the Empire's representative in the matter.
Kell's actual job, however, was to stick close to chief engineer Geordi LaForge, who had been kindapped by a group of Romulans lead by Sela, brainwashed, and then allowed to return to the Enterprise, beleiving he had been on vacation on Risa. LaForge was conditioned to receive commands through his VISOR that he would be forced to obey. Kell was provided with a small transmitter that carried commands directly to LaForge's brain. The transmissions were detected by Data as e-band transmissions, which were very unusual in normal space.
The Enterprise crew quickly determined that the weapons Vagh had intercepted were fakes manufactured to the Romulans, and proved it to Vagh. Using the transmitter, Kell forced LaForge to beam down several crates of Starfleet phasers to Krios and delete the records, which were intercepted by Vagh. Believing that Captain Jean-Luc Picard had lied to him, Vagh had several warships surround the Enterprise and was fully prepared to attack the Enterprise. Picard had Data and LaForge (who had no memory of his actions) commence an investigation, which quickly determined that the weapons had been beamed down from a cargo bay. The pair began to reconstruction the identification of the person who transported the weapons.
Realizing the investigation would soon lead to LaForge being exposed, Kell decided to beam down to Krios and convince Vagh to come on board to witness the investigation first hand. Having used the transmitter to order LaForge to report to his quarters, Kell told LaForge that he would bring Governor Vagh back on board, and when in the cargo bay LaForge was to kill Vagh in front of many witnesses. He further instructed LaForge that after assassinating Vagh LaForge was to claim he did it on the Federation's behalf in support of Kriosian independence.
Data, meanwhile, was able to determine that the e-band emissions were structured so that they could be processed by a system that carried information to an individual's brain, such as LaForge's VISOR. Checking the shuttle LaForge had used when he was kidnapped, he found it had been held in a Romulan tractor beam and its memory chips replaced with Romulan chips. Realizing LaForge had been abducted and brainwashed into doing the Romulan's bidding, Data ordered Worf to take LaForge into custody but Worf was obstructed by Vagh's own guards. Worf shouted out a warning, which enabled Picard to stop LaForge from killing Governor Vagh at the last moment. Picard had Worf escort LaForge out of the cargo bay.
Arriving in the cargo bay, Data explained what had happened to LaForge. Informing Picard, Kell, and Vagh that someone would have to be very close to LaForge, Data told the three that he the only two people to have been with LaForge when e-band transmissions were detected were Captain Picard and Ambassador Kell. Data requested permission to search both men. Kell angrily refused, stating that he was an emissary of the High Council who would not be searched by Data or anyone else on the Enterprise. That was a mistake on Kell's part, as he was then arrested by Vagh. Kell requested asylum in the Federation, but Picard told him that he would only grant Kell asylum after he had been absolved of his crimes.
Vagh took Kell back to Krios, where his people searched the Ambassador for the transmitter. It is not known what happened to Kell but he was most likely executed by the Klingons for trying to destroy the alliance between the Empire and the Federation.
Trivia[]
Dobkin was the director of the original series episode Charlie X, which featured the character Charlie Evans.
In the novel The Insolence of Office: Slings and Arrows #3 this incident and the later destruction of the Enterprise-D by the Dursassisters using intelligence gleaned from LaForge's VISOR was cited by Admiral Hayes as the reasons why he insisted LaForge have the VISOR replaced with ocular implants or be transferred off the Enterprise. This was offered as an in-universe explanation of why LaForge no longer had a VISOR in First Contact. (The out-of-universe reason was that producers finally granted LeVar Burton's request to not have him wear the VISOR anymore).
