Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
The Ship held an ancient secret that meant Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his people's enemies—and found that his betrayal meant the death of the girl he loved. and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and "I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their families." guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust that burst when touched. there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" heat-stones." His anger forced out the forbidden words. "Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if we found out, or got mad." Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the Crash , and nobody knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting aside the door curtain. wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts blown straight out. have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in the shoulders, quicker on their feet. hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to foot. knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was too bad for the man who climbed on them. three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in the pillbox. A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue of rock under the spears and slingstones. scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. 'em on an ordinary raid." Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the "Think they could know what's in it?" the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, but they weren't climbing the walls any more. "Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it his fingers. He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." fingers. "It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning cannibal. That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get them as if they were strange things and no part of him. "Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, but they didn't actually kill them." that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear "I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there was nothing else to do." A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled "That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my father." too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to understand! I had to do it." enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. "Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill you." "I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow saying?" "You bet I know!" "That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!"

<question>:
What is the most powerful weapon any of the characters in the story have for combat?

<options>:
A Hunting rifles
B Cannons
C Hand-thrown implements
D Catapults

<answer>:

C