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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.
An older man by the mid-24th century, Kell worked as one of the Klingon Empire's Ambassadors to the Federation. The Romulans also employed him. Seeing a chance to fracture the alliance between the Federation and the Empire, the Romulans began supplying rebels on Krios with weapons and materials designed to look like Starfleet materials. These got 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 got 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 a group of Romulans had kidnaped led by Sela, brainwashed, and then allowed to return to the Enterprise, believing he had been on vacation on Risa. LaForge became conditioned to receive commands he would be forced to obey through his VISOR. Kell received a small transmitter that carried commands directly to LaForge's brain. Data detected the transmissions as e-band transmissions, which were very unusual in standard space.
The Enterprise crew quickly determined that the weapons Vagh had intercepted were fakes manufactured for 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 Vagh intercepted. Believing that Captain Jean-Luc Picard had lied to him, Vagh had several warships surrounding 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, quickly determining that the weapons had beamed down from a cargo bay. The pair began reconstructing the identification of the person who transported the artillery.
Kell decided to beam down to Krios and convince Vagh to come on board to witness the investigation firsthand, realizing the investigation would soon expose LaForge. 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 to support Kriosian independence.
Meanwhile, Data determined that the e-band emissions were structured to 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 got kidnapped, he found it had been in a Romulan tractor beam, and its memory chips got 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 Vagh's guards obstructed Worf. Worf shouted 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 the only two people to have been with LaForge when e-band transmissions got 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 get searched by Data or anyone else on the Enterprise. That was a mistake on Kell's part, as Vagh then arrested him. Kell requested asylum in the Federation, but Picard told him he would only grant Kell asylum after his crimes became absolved.
Vagh took Kell back to Krios, where his people searched the Ambassador for the transmitter. It is unknown what happened to Kell, but the Klingons most likely executed him 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).
