{some random text} 9.99    9.999   9.999  9.999   9.9999   9.9999 
{more text}        9.99    *9.999  *9.999 9.999   9.9999   9.9999 
{even more text}   9.99    9.999   9.999  *9.999  *9.9999  *9.9999 

..this goes on for 12 or so columns..

##</code><code>##

perl -1 "while (<>) s/\t(\*w+)/      \1/g;s/\t\s(w+)/    \1/g;print}" myfile