Nah I don't think they were armed. They were kinda blockade runners therefore they wouldn't need weapons.
Anyway the intro kinda dictates that they broke free of the blockade in a matter of seconds (yea a little exaggerated, but it wouldn't take longer than an hour to break the blockade). But killing something in a sleeper ship would be like killing a battleship in a transport. In anycase, i doubt they would put in a large powercore to deal with weapons - they were concentrating on cargo space to hold people and supplies.
